Naruto and The Infinity Library
by Spiral Reflection
Summary: There are whispers of a boundless space that contains all information- past, present, and even future- that exists. And those that manage to navigate it will find the answers they seek. So what happens when Naruto, who is not a fan of the written word, is given a pass to this infinite library? ON HIATUS- NOTICE IN CHAPTER 6
1. Prologue

**DISCLAIMER:**** I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO NARUTO. BE IT THE RIGHTS TO THE ANIME, MANGA OR MERCHANDISE. THIS IS A FANFICTION.**

* * *

Seven year old Naruto Uzumaki sat at the table in his small parlour, trying to study for the test which was coming up the next day.

This was not normally his style but after the short confrontation he had had with the annoying Uchiha earlier in the day he wanted to beat him so badly. Just because he came from a prestigious clan he thought he was so great and perfect. Just thinking about that annoying Uchiha was enough to make steam come out of his ears. Oh he'd show him, he'd show them all! Not just that Uchiha but also those that laughed at him and said he was not fit to be a shinobi; those who said he was weak; those who said he was worthless: he'd show them all! And all he needed to do was to beat that Uchiha in their next test. If he did that then they'd all have to acknowledge him.

It was the perfect plan!

Indeed, it was the perfect plan. If only he had the patience to do more than **try** to study. That Naruto once again held the lowest score in his entire class was no surprise. That he was frustrated by this was also no surprise. That his frustration increased when he learnt that Uchiha Sasuke was the second highest in the class was even less surprising.

"So annoying!" Naruto all but shouted as he ripped up his test paper into the tiny bits, squeezed the together to form a ball and then threw them into the dustbin. Even that was not enough to calm his anger. How he wished he knew one of those impressive fire jutsu then he could incinerate the damn thing as well.

He was in a bad mood. He was in a really bad mood.

Well whatever. Why should he care, when would he ever need such knowledge in the real world anyway? It wouldn't help him defeat his enemy. It was useless!

"Knowledge is power you know." a voice said and Naruto turned his head to the side surprised.

Sitting beside him was a figure dressed in a long red jacket with black stripes at his side and his hood pulled down fully to cover his face.

He sat hunched with his arms resting on the table as he stared at his noodles without eating any- his bowl was still full.

Naruto stared at the man for a while before turning back to his food. He was sure that the mysterious stranger had not been talking to him. Not only had he not been speaking out loud but also the fact that hardly anyone spoke to him if they didn't have to.

Even if Naruto knew all this, he still felt compelled to reply.

"Yeah right! Like knowing the name of the person that created a jutsu long ago will actually help me when I'm facing off a dangerous opponent."

"You'll be surprised kid." The man replied.

Naruto turned to him in surprise that the man had replied to him. The man had also turned to him and as they looked at each other, Naruto could see the man's huge grin in the shadow of his hood.

"So you failed a test?" the man asked with his grin still on his face though it was smaller than it had been. His ramen had now been wholly forgotten and was pushed to the side in favour of him watching Naruto.

"Wha-?" Naruto spluttered indignantly, "What makes you think that?" he asked with his face in a scowl.

"You didn't deny it." He said.

"What?" Naruto said but he still didn't deny it.

At this the man gave a knowing grin that made Naruto annoyed.

"Also, with what you were mumbling I could tell that you were angry at the results of your test. So how'd it happen? Did you even try studying?"

"Of course I did! And I would have succeeded too if only the books weren't so boring!" he complained "How on earth did they manage to make everything the yondaime did sound so boring?"

"Oh? Is that it?" the man asked with an amused smirk, "the books are too boring for you?"

"Yes." Naruto answered as he raised his bowl to his lips to drink what was left of the ramen broth. Then he looked over to the man's bowl of ramen that had remained untouched.

The man had returned to what he was doing before he had begun talking to Naruto- using his chopsticks to turn around the ramen in the bowl while not eating any of it.

"You're not eating?" Naruto asked the man. He was surprised that there was anyone that could resist the temptation that was ramen.

The man looked over to where he saw the ramen chef setting another bowl in front of the small boy and he cocked his eyebrows when he saw the five empty bowls that were already stacked beside the boy.

"You eat a lot of ramen for such a small guy don't you?" the man said as he motioned Teuchi, the owner of the ramen shop, over.

"I'm not small." Naruto retorted "Plus ramen is good."

After ordering a fresh bowl of ramen and having his first bowl taken away the man turned to Naruto.

"It's a pity that you think so badly of books. I'm a person who is very fond of book. I bet that I can change your opinion on them." He gave Naruto a big smile, "I like you kid so tell me- what's your name?"

"Naruto Uzumaki. Great shinobi and future hokage of Konoha!" Naruto said enthusiastically.

"Well Naruto take this." He said and handed him a card. It was a small laminated card with a strange looking symbol on one side and a blank space on the other side. "A friend of mine will drop off a present for you later in the day. Just follow the instructions he gives you and you'll be fine."

"Well then kiddo, I'm off." The man stood from his sit and Naruto saw that his bowl was empty.

"Hey, what's your name?" Naruto asked him.

"Me?" the man turned and even though Naruto could not see his face, he got the impression that the man was scrutinising him. "People call me Crell"

With that the man turned the corner of the street and was gone.

Naruto went back into the ramen booth and had two more bowls of ramen before he went home. When he entered his house he was surprised to see a large wall clock leaning against one wall with a large bow on top.

Naruto stared at the wall clock for a while. He was sure that it was not in the room when he had left it that morning so it had to be the gift that Crell was talking about. What about the instructions? He searched all around before he found the instructions written on a card that was posted on the side. It read 'Place card here, face down. Enter the opened door and close it after you.'

Naruto did as he had been instructed and placed the card given to him by Crell in the square shaped space that had been occupied by the instruction card.

When the glass door on the clock swung open Naruto entered it and closed the door behind him. As he watched, everything outside the clock seemed to be moving further away from him. Then they became blurry like reflections on a water surface and then finally he was enveloped in darkness with.

After what seemed like a long time his body seemed to begin moving up. A few moments later the space surrounding Naruto became brighter and he looked up towards the location of the light. Over him he could see blurry images that he could tell was not his room. As the images became clearer and clearer the sound of a clock chiming became louder and louder until finally he stopped.

Naruto looked around and found himself standing in a clear space. On the floor underneath was a sign that greatly resembled the one on the card given to him by Crell. The ceiling of the room stretched so high that Naruto felt like he was much smaller that he actually was and the bright light coming from the ceiling lit up the library- though Naruto could not tell what the source of the light was. And as far as his eyes could see, and probably much further his mind told him, were bookshelves that stretched as high as the hokage mountain (in his childish mind) and were filled with books.

"Where is this place." He breathed with awe.

This place was so much bigger than the library in Konoha and even he that did not like books could not deny how impressed he was.

"Grrr,"

A growl coming from one of his sides caused Naruto to snap out of his daze and when he did he noticed that he was surrounded on all sides by white wolves.

"Who are you?" a wolf with a blue markings on its forehead asked in a menacing tone and something about the wolf told him that it was really important.

"My name's Naruto Uzumaki." He said. At all times Naruto was a child that would claim that nothing scared him, but the truth of the matter was that these creatures were intimidating- even more so since there were so many of them.

"How did you get here?" the wolf asked.

"I- I got into the clock in my room and it brought me here."

"You do not lie?"

"No. See," Naruto said digging around in his pocket and pulling out the card that had been given to him by Crell so that he could show it to the wolves, "I got this from a guy named Crell and then I used it to open the clock and it brought me here."

At this a the wolves began to mutter to each other in a language Naruto did not understand, or they could just have been speaking too low for him to hear what they were saying.

However, the wolf that had been speaking to Naruto said nothing as it came forward to examine the card. After looking at the card it began to examine Naruto who had been standing there quietly, feeling nervous as the wolf examined the card.

"Tsk." It growled, "Those two idiots have gone off and are doing things as they like."

"What do we do now Naevar?" A White wolf with red markings on its body asked.

"Nothing." The wolf named Naevar replied.

"What do you mean nothing?" another wolf asked. "We cannot just disregard this boy since he has been sent here by Crell."

"Yes," Naevar said, "We can. We serve the bookkeeper and this boy is not him. His blank card is proof of that." Then turning around to face the child he said with a sneer, "As if such a pathetic human is fit to be a bookkeeper."

"Hey!" Naruto said heatedly. He had been following the conversation and did not fail to notice the insult to his person. Even when Naevar snarled at Him in a manner that dared him to say anything, he didn't back down. "I am not pathetic. Someday I'm going to be the greatest ninja ever then I'll be the hokage so you shouldn't disrespect me!"

"Then this hokage person must be extremely weak." Naevar said.

"What was that you stupid wolf?" Naruto said enraged. "The hokage is the strongest ninja in Konoha and everyone acknowledges him. Your stupid bookkeeper or whatever it is can't be compared!"

Naevar turned to him with a sneer on his face that told Naruto exactly what he was thinking: 'Weak. Not worth the time.'

His silent sneer just served to aggravate the already furious blond.

"Fine! Just you watch me. I'm going to become this 'bookkeeper' person and when I do then you're going to have to say that I'm strong and that the hokage is the strongest. Got it?" Naruto said. He had one hand outstretched with his finger pointing straight at the wolf as he gave the challenge.

"A brat like you become a bookkeeper?" the very idea seemed repulsive to the wolf.

"Yeah!" Naruto said.

"Ha!" was all Naevar said.

With that he turned around and walked away with the other wolves following after him. They took several leaps and were soon running on the bookshelves. A short time later he couldn't see them anymore.

Naruto remained there for some seconds glaring in the direction in which the wolves had disappeared before he remembered something- he had no clue what a bookkeeper was or how he was to become one.

"Well whatever." He huffed, "It doesn't matter I'll still become one anyhow."

Now, what should his next move be? He sat there with his hand on his chin, in his thinking pose, as he tried to decide what his next move would be. He had been sitting there for some time when a light bulb went off in his mind. The stupid wolf, as he had taken to calling Naevar, had said that he was not a bookkeeper because he had a 'blank' card. Naruto wondered what that meant as he drew out the card Crell had given him and looked at it.

He really was not sure what Naevar had meant when he said that his card was blank. Well that was okay with him he just had to find someone who did then he would be able to find a way to stop his card from being blank. So where would he find someone that would help? If this place was a library then that meant there had to be a librarian somewhere here right? All he had to do was find the librarian. He had no clue where to find the librarian but he was sure that if he walked around long enough he would find someone. With that thought he got up, dusted himself down and began walking in the opposite direction to the one followed by the wolves.

* * *

How long had he been walking?

For Naruto time tended to move much faster than other people. Where one minute passed for others, half an hour had passed for him- his impatience could be blamed for the way he sensed the time passing. However this time he was sure he had been walking for a very long time and still he had seen no one, and the bookshelves didn't seem to be coming to an end either.

"Argh." He growled out in exasperation. "How big is this place?"

Clack.

He turned around when he heard the sound coming from behind him. It took all his will to stop himself from shivering. As he turned around, away from the noise, he brought up his hands and rubbed them against his arms to smooth out the goose bumps that were forming all down them.

He continued walking but never brought down his hands back to his sides. From time to time his eyes flicked from side to side and once he turned his head around to look back.

"There's nothing there…" he murmured to himself and continued walking repeating that sentence in his mind to ward off the feeling of unease that was creeping up on him.

Still repeating this to himself he began to walk faster and faster, the noise made by his sandals echoing in the large and seemingly empty library. Then there was another small sound from behind him and listening to the survival instinct gained through years of experience he began to run- never bothering to look behind him.

A warning bell went off in his head and he immediately threw himself on the floor. Something went whooshing over his head and Naruto scrambled to get back to his feet. In front of him was a large black creature that looked like a wolf made of mist with three long scars at each side that opened and closed and reminded Naruto of the gills on a fish he had seen in a pet store. But he didn't take time to notice it; one look at the creature's red eyes told him to run.

He turned around and immediately began to run in the direction he had just come from. He felt the creature coming up behind him and at the next intersection he turned sharply, hoping that the creature had not anticipated this move. He continued moving like this, taking sharp turns whenever he felt that the thing had caught up too much.

He had been running for some time and his lungs were hurting. If not for his ninja training he would either have collapsed or have been caught. Even now he could feel his legs begging him to stop and rest but he couldn't- he was not ready to die yet.

Then his legs seemed to tangle beneath him and he fell down, skidding some way forward and right past the edge of the floor into an enormous black hole that had no end in sight either forwards or downwards.

_What? What?What?_ Naruto's mind was screaming the entire time as he descended into the blackness. Why was there such a place in a library?

_I'm going to die! I'm going to die! I'm going to die! Someone save me!_


	2. The Infinity Library

**DISCLAIMER: ****I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO NARUTO. BE IT THE RIGHTS TO THE ANIME, MANGA OR MERCHANDISE. THIS IS A FANFICTION.**

* * *

_What? What?What?_ Naruto's mind was screaming the entire time as he descended into the blackness. Why was there such a place in a library?

_I'm going to die! I'm going to die! I'm going to die! Someone save me!_

It had been some time now since he had thought that, Naruto realised. How long had he been falling? He wondered as he looked up and into the blackness that was now surrounding him- the edge he fell off was no longer in his sights. Hm, he really needed to get himself a wristwatch. Where at first he had been panicked and worried about his coming death right now he was calm about the whole thing and was just enjoying the fall- if only it wasn't so dark. He sighed. He would add glow sticks or maybe a torch light to his shopping list once he got out of this place. He had no doubts that he would get out.

He was really glad that that beast had not followed him. At first he had been too focused on the end of his fall to really appreciate the fact that he had escaped from that thing that was chasing him but after some time when it became apparent to him that his fall was not coming to an end any time soon he calmed down and began to think. He had first thought about the monster that was chasing him: What was it? Would it come after him? Were there anymore of those things lurking about in this annoyingly big library? If yes then did that guy Crell know about them? If he did then why did he send him here? Naruto shivered as a picture of the beast came to his mind again. He remembered the fear and foreboding he had felt from just being near it. He also got the distinct feeling that had that thing been in Naevar's position he would be dead.

'_Not a good feeling' _he thought. Then with a slight effort he pulled his mind away from thoughts of death and focused on something more important. Namely his stomach and how hungry he was.

How long was he going to be falling? He wondered. Once again he had to wonder why there were such things in a library. Next time Iruka or the hokage tried to convince him to go to the library to study he would have a very valid reason to refuse: 'Thank you very much for the suggestion but I have no desire to be eaten by a monster or fall to my death today.'

Maybe he should try to fall asleep. Maybe once he fell asleep he would wake up back in his room and find that he had just tripped over one of the many things that always cluttered his floor which in turn had caused him to hit his head rather hard and resulted in him passing out and having this bizarre dream.

He closed his eyes and began to hum a song to himself. Softly, the words of the song 'Somewhere over the rainbow' came to his mind and as he hummed it he fell asleep.

When Naruto awoke he felt as though something was different to when he had fallen asleep. He sat up and stretched his hands feeling a slight pang in his legs as he did so. Well, that was bound to happen given how long and how hard he had been walking and then running.

It was at this time that he noticed that it was no longer the pure black darkness that had enveloped him before he first fell asleep but instead it was the darkness of night. In fact it pretty bright for night time he thought as he turned his head to face the huge moon that looked like it was about to touch the water.

Below him was a large beach that stretched for quite a distance. The water calmly lapped at the shore and further out the sea Naruto could see a few waves. The waves reminded him of the horses that he had sometimes seen in Konoha. Actually when he focused his eyes on them he felt that they seemed more like horses than water. Bookshelves lay in half hazard positions at different points on the beach- some laying down, some up right, some on their sides, some in positions that Naruto was sure was not possible. Someway away Naruto could spot several street lamps giving off a white light. From his position and distance they seemed like stars on earth- beautiful. But the stars in the sky, as if determined not to lose to the street lamps, were ten times as dazzling as he had ever seen them in Konoha.

As he continued to look around he noticed several floating bubbles of different sizes all floating in the air. Now that he noticed these bubbles he realised that he was in one of them himself. Ah so that was what was different: he was now gently floating over the beach instead of rapidly falling to his death.

Now this was more like it he thought as he shifted slightly so he was in a more comfortable position in the bubble. This way he could relax and watch the scene calmly. With his hyperactive nature it might have done him good to pop the bubble but not only was he high enough that he would hurt himself if he fell but with his sore leg he wanted to just relax a little. Not only that but there was a sort of giddiness that he felt as he floated in the bubble- he was, for all intent and purpose, flying.

After sometime Naruto lay down and curled in on himself as he watched the horses formed from the waves as they galloped some way forward before they were swallowed by the mother wave or just dissolved back into the water. Slowly, as he watched this scene happen several times, while listening to the lullaby sang by the crashing waves and whistling wind, his eyes began to close until finally, he was pulled back into the dream realm with a small and peaceful smile on his lips.

"What the-?" Naruto said as he jerked awake from his sleep. His mind was immediately cleared and focused when he saw what had woken him up. On top of his bubble was the large creature that had been chasing him before. It could have been a different one but he couldn't tell.

"Ack!" He leaned as far back as he could in the bubble hoping that it would keep him safe from the outside world.

Unfortunately that hope was put to rest as the thing raised a clawed paw and swiped at the bubble causing it to pop immediately. Now he was back to falling and the panic he had felt the first time around hit him hard causing him to scream out his lungs, his eyes tightly shut.

"_Not this again!" _he thought furiously just before he felt something close around his body protectively.

"_Hm?"_ he wondered, opening up his eyes to see what exactly had happened to him.

He was held firmly in the arms of a girl with short hair that was a flaming red colour and sharp golden yellow eyes. She had dog ears and wore a red sleeveless shirt with ruffles down the front along with black shorts that stopped mid-thigh and black boots that stopped a little below her knee. The girl held a gold, black and red staff like weapon that had a sharp blade at one end and a closed diamond shape at the other end, just after a pair of small red angel wings that were closed together almost completely.

The girl was pointing the end with the wings on it towards the creature which stood there watching her cautiously. Then it suddenly decided to attack and jumped at them. The girl barely moved as it came towards her, only adjusting the staff so that it was pointing straight at the creature. Before Naruto's eyes the closed shape opened and sucked in the monster before closing up again. Once the diamond shape closed the wings opened just a little bit more.

"Boring." She said in a quiet voice, that Naruto barely heard, before she unceremoniously let him go and he fell in a heap on the ground.

Without another word she turned around and began to leave.

"Onee- chan!" Naruto called after her but she didn't respond. "Onee- chan!" he tried again. Puffing out his cheeks in slight annoyance when she still ignored his words he ran to catch up with her. With her slow pace he could easily over take her and then he turned to face her. "Thank you, for saving me." He said with a small bow.

"… You're welcome." She replied after a moment's contemplation.

"By the way my name is Uzumaki Naruto!" he said enthusiastically, falling back so that he was now walking beside her.

When she didn't say anything but keep walking he said "And your name is?"

"Nerra." She replied but said nothing more.

Dang! She was hard to talk to.

Naruto's stomach growled in protest of its current empty state and Naruto sighed. He was hungry, had been for quite a while and would be for a while more. After searching around in his pocket for a bit he found a small a small packet of assorted flavour bubble gum sticks that was a quarter eaten. He removed one of the sticks from the packet and popped it into his mouth. He knew that once the flavour in the gum was gone his stomach would be noisier than before but hopefully he would have found something to ward off his hunger more permanently by then.

"Want some?" he offered the quiet girl beside him but she shook her head and shrugging his shoulders he returned the packet of gum to his pocket.

They had been walking in silence for a long time when Naruto snuck a peak at her in the moonlight and realised that even though she had dog ears and a very fluffy tail he felt safe around her; much safer than with the thing she'd killed.

"What was that wolf thing that you destroyed?" he asked turning half way so that he could face her.

"… It was the pet of a destroyed warden. It's a dog not a wolf."

"What are those- wardens?"

"The rule enforcers of the library."

"Aren't those librarians?"

"No."

"In the library at home it was always the librarians that kept watch over everything. None of them liked me because they thought I was too noisy and was an annoying troublemaker."

At this point the girl gave a small snort and Naruto smiled a little.

"Yeah, they did." He said as if her snort had been one of disbelief. "Once this new librarian even threw me out of the library and I was so mad I put glue on his chair the first chance I got. When he left that day, there was this super humongous hole on the back of his trousers and he was so red a tomato would be ashamed. Of course he tried to pin it on me but he didn't have any proof so I got away. Now whenever he sees me in the library he always glares at me and I just whisper 'I see your underwear' then he goes all red faced and glares a little harder but can't do anything about it anyway."

Nerra didn't answer so he took it as an indication that he could continue talking.

"But even the librarians weren't allowed to have pets so how come these warden guys get to have pets?" he asked but she said nothing.

"Where are we anyway?" he asked trying another line of conversation. "Normal libraries don't have beaches in them or floating bubbles." He cocked his head to one side and thought for a while before saying "If they did I would visit more often."

"The infinity library is not a normal library." She told him.

"Infinity library is that what this place is called?"

"Yes."

He sighed as his tiredness overtook him. His legs were still sore and now he was walking again.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"I," she said emphasising the 'I', "am going to find shelter. 'You' are free to do whatever you want."

"Where do we find shelter?" he asked her, not catching the obvious hint in her words.

She just shook her head at him but there was a hint of a smile on her lips that Naruto might have seen if he had not had to yawn and rub his eyes. He was tired and hungry and was too far gone for the gum in his mouth to be doing him any good. In fact his jaws hurt and added to his irritation but for some reason he didn't want to spit it out.

"Here," Nerra's voice said to him and he looked up to find her squatting in front of him, offering him her back.

"Mm." Naruto said gratefully and got onto her back, very glad for the offer. At any other time he might have argued that he was now too old for piggy backs but just this once he was not going to kick up a fuss- or at least that was what his sluggish mind said.

* * *

A hand came into view, tightly holding onto the ledge of the cliff.

With a small effort Nerra was finally able to push the sleeping blond onto the ledge before pulling herself up. Then she picked him up and properly set him on the floor, deeper in the cave before bending over and taking a deep breath. The small blond boy might be light but it still took some strength to climb while holding his sleeping form.

She pushed herself up then walked to the edge of the cave and looked down at the waters that crashed against the bottom of the cliff. Once she was satisfied that the water would not be able to reach and flood the cave even at high tide she settled down and rested her back against one of the cave's walls.

She tilted her head back to lean against the wall and turned so she was looking at the moon that loomed over the sea. She idly wondered if the man on the moon was present in the moon at that time. Maybe she could go visit once she left here- he might be insane with an extra amount of cuckoo but he made a mean mug of hot chocolate.

Thinking on that brought her to her current position right now. Once she parted with the child… she looked over to face the form that had rolled over but was still sleeping peacefully. He was lucky that the weather was nice and warm this time. But still… what exactly had brought a child this young to the infinity library? It was usually older people in deep pursuit of knowledge or answers that came to this place.

He mumbled lightly in his sleep and she shook her head. She wondered whether or not she could leave him on his own. He seemed to be doing alright so far but then again he would be dead if she had not been present when he had been attacked by that stray.

In his sleep he quietly mumbled the words 'Ramen. Extra-large miso please...' and she gave a long suffering sigh. If she had allowed him to come this far with her then she might as well feed him. Besides she could go for some food too.

* * *

Naruto awoke feeling much more relaxed than he had the previous times he had fallen asleep and woken up in this place. He blearily rubbed his eyes before looking around and discovering that he was in a cave. Outside was still dark so he concluded that either he had slept for only a short amount of time or he had slept through the next day as well.

By the light of the moon, which was rather little because of how far back in the cave he was, he saw that there were bookshelves carved into the sides of the caves and they were lined with books though the books were not as tightly packed as the books in the library room he had first arrived in.

He had never been a big fan of books but right now curiosity got the best of him as he wondered what sort of books would be kept in a place like this and he reached to open one of the bookshelves and take a look.

"Stop!" a voice called just before he could touch the handles on the glass door of the shelf.

Naruto turned ant there framed in the entrance of the cave was Nerra- the girl who had saved him.

"Unless you have permission to touch that book shelf then don't. I don't feel like dealing with wardens right now."

"Permission?" he asked. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the card Crell had given him. That he had this thing meant that he had permission to be here right? "Will this do?" he asked as he showed her the card.

Nerra took it from him and then tilting the card so that she could fully utilise the light of the moon to read it, she began studying the card. She studied it for a few seconds before raising her eyes from it and looking at Naruto.

"So is that enough?" he asked, fidgeting a little under her gaze.

"Not quite." She answered as she handed him back the card.

"Because it's blank?" he asked her as he remembered what Naevar had said. Nerra seemed familiar enough with this place so she might be able to tell him exactly what his card being 'blank' meant.

"…Yeah."

"What does that mean?"

"What?"

"Blank. I met a wolf in another place and he told me that my card was 'blank'. What does that mean? And how do I change that?"

"It's blank because it doesn't yet have your signature. Right there beside the logo of the infinity library is where your signature goes. You get a signature when you become a bookkeeper."

"Then what do I do now?" he asked.

Nerra didn't say anything but that was okay because he continued.

"I want to become a bookkeeper, how do I do that?"

"If you want to become a bookkeeper you need a key."

"A key? What type of key?" he asked. This might be easier than he thought at first.

"The type that you get from the key keeper." She answered.

Naruto's stomach grumbled and he wrapped his hands around it, all other thoughts pushed from his mind temporarily.

Nerra reached over to a pile of rocks that Naruto had only just noticed, picked up a skewered and roasted fish from among the ones resting on the rock and handed it to him. Glad at the sight of something to eat he accepted the fish and gobbled it down then requested another, then another, then another until finally he had eaten twelve of them.

"Ah. I feel better." He said with a contented sigh. "How long was I asleep?" he asked Nerra.

"Long." Was all she replied, and Naruto's eye twitched.

But Nerra didn't seem to have seen this. Her head was leaned back against the wall and her eyes were closed.

"So what is this infinity library place?" he began, "It's nothing like the library back in Konoha. That library didn't have monster dogs or beaches or dark holes or talking wolves… or wardens... though the librarians were horrible enough." He mumbled the last part to himself. "Why is this place so different?" he finished.

"_He really doesn't know anything."_ Nerra thought opening her eyes to look at him.

"The infinity library," she said out loud "is a library that has no beginning and no end." Seeing the slight look of confusion on the face of the young boy she sighed. "It's like straight road going in only one direction but no matter how long you follow that road there is always more of the road ahead of you, even if you keep walking along that road the you're old and grey you will never reach the end. That's how the infinity library is."

"Then it's really big isn't it?" Naruto said after a moments thought.

"Mm." she said "Any and all information that you want- past, present and future- can be found somewhere in this library. From the simplest recipe for making the perfect pot of rice to instructions on how to raise an army of soldiers to destroy the world: you can find it here."

Naruto nodded his head. He may not be the sharpest nail in the tool box but even he understood that much. That was kind of cool. There were probably some cool techniques in this library that could help him prove how superior he was to that stuck up stick in the mud, Sasuke.

"Do you know Naruto that every decision has a consequence?"

"Yeah, Iruka sensei always tells me that when he's scolding me." The boy said.

"Do you know that for every single decision you make you could have made many others. For instance you could have decided not to prank that librarian or you could have decided on several other pranks that would have given different results."

Naruto nodded. He knew the librarian she was talking about and he remembered how many other pranks he had considered before deciding on the glue prank.

"This library can tell you every other alternative you could have made and how it would have turned out. For every choice you have it could have given you a thousand other choices and their consequences. The information in the library is forever multiplying."

He thought about what she had said and its implications. If he could find all that information then he could also find out what he had to do to become hokage; he could find out why everyone hated him; he could find out who his parents were; he could find out how to become stronger or how to make others acknowledge him: His life could be so much easier if he had all that information!

"There are many people who could misuse this information." Nerra said. "They use it hurt others. They use it to do things that should not be done."

Here Naruto's mind had to reel back to reality as he realised that there were many times that he could have been hurt so bad if only he had been just a little slower or had remained at place just a little longer. Those people that had tried to hurt him would have been able to do so if they had this info. Here he squirmed uncomfortably in his seat as he realised that there were many things that could have been done with information like that that would hurt others. Now he thought about it he didn't want bad guys to be able to find out how to destroy the world but this library could tell them how to do it and get away with it.

"That's were wardens come in. Wardens and their pets are the beings that guard this library. Just because the library can tell you how to do it doesn't mean the warden will let you access it- especially if they judge you and find you 'unworthy'. That dog that attacked you earlier was a stray, a dog whose warden is dead. Strays have only a quarter of their power and even for a stray that dog was weak."

"That means that the wardens are much scarier right?" Naruto asked.

"Just hope you don't have to deal with one." She replied.

"So as long as I don't touch the books I don't have to deal with a warden. But I don't get it; don't libraries exist so people can read from them?" The hokage was always trying to get him to read more and go to the library. Just having a place filled with books you could not touch or read was useless.

"No. Every library has its rules. The same goes for this library. If you break any of the rules set by this library then you have to deal with a warden. As for reading, it's not that you can't read from them you just need permission. The person that grants you permission is the librarian. Depending on what information you want or what you want to know you have to get a library card from the librarian. The more important the information you want is, the harder it is to get a card from a librarian."

"What about my card? You said we needed to get a key for me to use it but how come we're going to see the key keeper instead of a librarian?" he asked.

"That's because your card is not a library card but more of an identification card. It's the card that is given only to those who have the potential to be bookkeepers. The only way to activate your card is to go see the key keeper."

Naruto thought about it for a while before asking a question:

"What makes a bookkeeper so different from everyone else? Why are they so special? That stupid wolf made it sound like it was such a big deal." He said with a pout. No matter how great a bookkeeper was what gave anyone the right to look down on the hokage or him?

Nerra just shrugged before leaning back against the wall again. "I'm tired of talking now."

"What? Can't you just answer? Please?"

Nerra didn't reply as she closed her eyes. "When I wake up I'll take you to go see the key keeper."

"Really?" he asked excited.

But she didn't answer. When Naruto looked over at her he could make out the rising and falling of her chest. For a while he just sat and watched her before he gave a sigh and looked at the bookshelves again. He shook his head, banishing all thoughts of just taking a book to read- after all he was bored not suicidal. He walked to the entrance of the cave and sat down there again to watch the moon and see if he could make out the shapes of the horses he had seen from the bubble.

He wondered if anyone would miss him back in Konoha. How long had he been gone and how long before he returned? These were questions that he wanted to ask Nerra when she woke up. But he wasn't really in a hurry to leave because he still had a point to prove to Naevar, and prove it he would!

* * *

"Hey Nerra what's this key keeper guy like?" Naruto asked, looking over the edge of the giant hot air balloon that they were now using to get the key keeper's castle. This was even better than riding in a bubble!

Nerra did not answer and Naruto didn't bother repeating his question. Throughout his travels with the quiet red head he had realised that unless the answer was really simple or could be summarised then you had no guarantee that she would answer you. She wasn't antisocial or mean, she was just bad with words and simplifying explanations was not her strong point.

Right now they were on their way to see the key keeper. After they had left the cave he and Nerra had travelled together for some time. First they had taken a boat across the sea. Then they had climbed to the top of a rocky mountain via a narrow path that Naruto would have been blown off if Nerra hadn't been there. Near the top of the mountain was a cave which they entered. This time instead of staying in the cave they had followed a set of stairs in the back of the cave, that led further and further into and under the mountain and had come out in a huge fishing tank in a rundown old shack. The old shack had been in the middle of a dry and sandy waste land and was owned by an old lady owned several hot air balloons and who agreed to give them one in return for Nerra climbing up a huge tree to get the lady some weird purple fruit and then delivering it to a huge, purple lizard that lived in some weird underground room that was way, way, way too hurt from comfort- Nerra hadn't seemed affected in any way. The fruit had been needed for some weird energy drink. The drink had tasted horrible but Naruto had felt more energised after drinking it and he felt hydrated again. Apparently if he had had any injuries on him or he had been sick he would have been healed completely. The lizard had given him a small vial full of the stuff after seeing how much the heat affected him (and being told that his scales were cool).

After they had reported back to the old woman, she had given them the balloon and they had set off for the castle of the gatekeeper.

He didn't know how long he had been travelling with the red head. Time keeping had never been his strong point because time moved at a pace that was too slow for his ever hyped up mind.

"Time to go." Nerra said. They were now flying over a huge white castle. The tallest point of the castle was surrounded by four individual walls that were constantly in moving around in a circular motion. Naruto instantly felt that the castle of the key keeper seemed to be fit more for a giant than a normal man. And from that conclusion he drew his own description of what the key keeper must be like- he seemed awesome.

She held Naruto firmly under her arm and before he could protest she had jumped over edge of the hot air balloon that the two of them had been occupying.

As they fell towards the surface of the castle Naruto's randomly wondered what would happen to the abandoned balloon. Would it find its way back to its owner or just continue on and be lost.

His body jerked as Nerra landed on one of the flat surfaces of the castle roof. Then without putting him down she walked over to one of the open windows and jumped through. Once she landed on the smooth marble floors she dropped him.

"He should be at the very top of the castle. We need to find the stairs." She informed him.

"What are you doing?" a voice asked from behind them and both of them spun around in surprise. Standing there was a boy that looked to be around Naruto's age or younger. He had blond hair and dark purple eyes and wore a long white cloak over a black short sleeved T-shirt and white puffy pants. In his hands he held a tray that held a small soup bowl, a juice box and a stuffed white rabbit with pink ears.

"You guys do realise that there is a door right?" he asked in a voice that showed his amusement.

Naruto was not really perturbed by what he had said but Nerra kept her face deliberately emotionless. Where was the fun in just knocking at the door? It was much more exciting to jump out of the balloon.

Apparently he had been standing there when Naruto and Nerra jumped through the window.

"We're looking for the stairs to the tower; do you know where it is?" Naruto asked when it became obvious that Nerra was not going to say anything.

"Why do you want to go to the tower?" the young boy asked. He had begun walking and was now in front of them leading the way. Neither Naruto nor Nerra hesitated as they followed after him.

"We're looking for the key keeper." Naruto answered.

"Why? Do you need something?"

"Yep!" Naruto answered with an enthusiastic nod of the head and a grin, not that the boy could see him anyway, seeing as he had his back to them. "I need a key so I can become a bookkeeper."

"Really?" the boy said as he stopped and turned to face them, "You want to become a bookkeeper?"

"Yes. What about it?" Naruto asked immediately on the defensive. He was tired of people looking down on him like he was not good enough.

"Nothing." The boy said waving his hand in a dismissive fashion. "It's just that it's been such a long time since someone's come to me for that reason. I was a little surprised."

It took Naruto a bit of time to put together two and two together. "Wait! Does this mean you're the key keeper?"

"Yep, the one and only." The boy said with a big grin "Rigel .T. Silver, hundred and sixty seventh key keeper of the infinity library at your service." He said with a flourish and a bow.

Naruto stared at the boy, whatever he had been expecting; this boy standing in front of him was not it.


	3. Step 1: The path in the trees

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO NARUTO. BE IT THE RIGHTS TO THE ANIME, MANGA OR MERCHANDISE. THIS IS A FANFICTION.**

**AN: **Rigel is the name of one of the brightest stars in Orion's constellation with a magnitude of 0.12. Senshi means warrior. And Loki (if my info is correct) is the Norse god of mischief and mayhem.

* * *

"_Nothing." The boy said waving his hand in a dismissive fashion. "It's just that it's been such a long time since someone's come to me for that reason. I was a little surprised."_

_It took Naruto a bit of time to put together two and two together. "Wait! Does this mean you're the key keeper?" _

"_Yep, the one and only." The boy said with a big grin "Rigel .T. Silver, hundred and sixty seventh key keeper of the infinity library at your service." He said with a flourish and a bow._

_Naruto stared at the boy, whatever he had been expecting; this boy standing in front of him was not it._

* * *

Iruka Umino was a worried man.

He was also an anxious man but his worry far outweighed his anxiousness on this occasion. The source of his worries was one of his more troublesome students- Naruto Uzumaki. Naruto was a loud, annoying and rather ingenious prankster who seemed determined to ensure that Iruka, young as he was, would have a head full of white hair before Naruto graduated the academy- so far he was succeeding.

Skipping classes was not an uncommon practice for the young blond. Sitting down calmly and enduring the torture disguised as lectures was more than the boy could take, so every once in a while he would miss classes or play pranks. There were times when the blond had completely stopped attending classes for as long as two weeks. In those times Iruka was walking on pins and needles- everyone was. They knew that if they did not see the blond for more than two days then the boy was planning something big and everyone was immediately on their guard.

The same went for Iruka. The only difference was that while the others were worried about Naruto for his pranks, Iruka was worried about Naruto for Naruto. It was true that at first Naruto had irritated him by his mere existence- that boy was the reason his parents were dead after all- but as he got to observe and, eventually, interact with the blond he had come to realise that he was just a child. Like him Naruto was an orphan but unlike him Naruto had to constantly deal with the hatred for something he had no control over. Iruka began to understand that Naruto was the reason the village was safe and standing not the reason it was attacked.

With this revelation came a sense of shame which he had tried to reduce by offering the boy lunch at what everyone knew was Naruto's favourite restaurant- Ichiraku's. Following that lunch Iruka had become more and more attached to him. Now, even though he knew that Naruto was a prankster, even though he knew that Naruto's disappearance was more of a danger to everyone than to Naruto himself, he still couldn't help worrying over the welfare of the young jinchuuriki whenever he went missing.

This time though he was sitting on tenterhooks. Naruto had been missing for more than three weeks- that was 1.5 times longer than normal. What if something really had happened to him? What if he had been hurt somewhere and unable to reach help? What if he had been kidnapped?! That would be a disaster! No one else seemed to be worrying about the blond prankster so maybe he was just overreacting.

Yeah, he was probably overreacting. His mother hen tendencies were acting up a little, Naruto was fine, just peachy. He would probably show up any day now crowing about his latest successful prank… No biggie.

Since that had been settled Iruka decided that once he was done at school he would head over to Ichiraku's and order himself a nice hot bowl of ramen. Would he prefer miso or salt ramen? Hmm. Well he would choose once he got there. After making that decision Iruka felt more at ease and could concentrate more on the lecture he was giving. Yup, ramen after school sounded like a good idea and his choice had absolutely nothing to do with one blue eyed, blond haired troublemaker or the fact that Ichiraku's was his absolute favourite and most frequented restaurant. Yup, nothing at all…

* * *

"Here we are." Rigel said brightly as they stopped in front of an old but sturdy brown door at the top of an insanely long flight of stairs. Naruto was sure that they had been climbing for at least a few hours before reaching their destination. "If you would please Nerra?" he asked politely, gesturing to the black metal bar that was barring the ornately decorated door.

Without a word Nerra stepped forward and removed the bar, from the amount of effort she put into lifting it up it was easy to conclude as to the heaviness of bar. Nerra was not a weakling.

Rigel brought his hand to his neck and from under his shirt he pulled out a sturdy looking silver chain. On the chain was a golden pendant. One end of the pendant looked like the 'club' suit from a card deck and the other end looked like a coin with the remaining three suits- spade, heart and diamond- cut out in it in a triangle formation. He slipped the chain off his neck and stuck the 'club' end of the pendant into the keyhole. There was a faint click as he turned it and the door swung open a little.

"Then this is it." Rigel said as he turned to face Naruto. Naruto raised an eyebrow in question to this statement. "Past these doors are the keys. Each bookkeeper has a unique key that they can possess. All you have to do is find the key which has been assigned to you."

"How will I know it's mine?" Naruto asked with a small frown that showed concentration instead of annoyance.

"Just listen carefully to your mind or your instinct or your feelings or intuition- many people call it many different things. But you can be sure that you have a key in there because the only way this door will close after you've entered is if without a doubt there is a key waiting for you on the other side. Not just that but the only way this door will open up after you've entered is if you can find a key and let yourself out from the other side. In other words you either succeed in this task or you don't return."

Naruto shuddered at the implication of his words. In other words unless he could finish this task he wouldn't be able to go home or eat ramen again or become hokage or make Naevar eat his words.

"_As if such a pathetic human is fit to be a bookkeeper."_

"_Then this hokage person must be extremely weak."_

He was going to do this. He was not pathetic and that stupid wolf was going to have to acknowledge that.

Rigel smiled as he saw the determination filter back into the clear blue eyes of his fellow blond. He honestly liked this kid. He was young but he had a lot of courage. For a fraction of a second he wondered what exactly had made this boy so determined as to take a test that could end his obviously short life.

"See you guys in a bit." Naruto said before he walked through the large wooden door. He hesitated for a moment before entering through the door.

Of its own accord the door slammed shut and that was all the confirmation they needed that Naruto Uzumaki indeed had the requirements to become a bookkeeper.

Rigel stood there staring at the door for a while, his usually cheerful smile was off his face and the air around him radiated his seriousness. He really liked Naruto and he wanted him to emerge from that place.

"He's going to come out." A voice said and he turned around startled.

The girl, Nerra was sitting down on the stairs her back resting on the steps and facing him. She had not said a single word once since they had come but he knew she had been listening to everything they said.

"You shouldn't waste time being anxious over nothing." This time she turned to look at him, her golden eyes filled with an unassailable certainty "Naruto won't die in there." She said and turned away from him again. She adjusted her body on the wide stairs so that she was lying on her back with her hands supporting her head. Her eyes closed and soon her breathing evened out, indication that she was asleep.

Rigel studied her form trying to tell if she had really gone to sleep or if she was just playing possum. Nerra seemed like she was the kind of person who would be perfectly happy to fall asleep in the middle of a fierce battle as long as her enemies would leave her alone for long enough. On the flip side she also seemed like the kind of person who would pretend to be asleep just so that she would be left alone. A lone wolf who had become attached to little red riding hood? Yes Naruto did have the character of someone who would easily talk to strangers and was trusting to a fault. Well there was no helping it he thought as he sat down and lifted the tray to sit on his lap. Naruto would come out of there, there was no way he wouldn't- Rigel didn't let himself think otherwise.

0000000011001100110011001100 1100110011001100110011001100 1100110000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000 0000000000000000000000000000 00

* * *

Naruto was a little on edge as he entered the room. This place felt… unsettled. That was the only way he could describe how he felt on entering it.

He heard the door slam hard behind him and turned to look back. The door had closed behind him, according to Rigel that meant that in here there was a key that belonged to him- he could become a bookkeeper. That closed door had meant that his was one step closer to his objective and that in turn filled him with a new sense of confidence.

'_That's a good feeling.' _A voice said in his head and he had to agree. Wait! Did he hear a chuckle just now or was that his imagination. He listened carefully but heard nothing so he dismissed it as the wind.

At this thought Naruto looked around his surroundings and noticed he was in forest. The door he had passed through was set in a tree that was at least as tall as the hokage tower. It was a more worn out version of the door in Rigel's castle and was covered in overgrown weeds and moss. A quiet breeze blew through the forest, caressing the leaves on the giant trees as it did so. As the leaves rustled in response to the breeze Naruto fancied he could make out some words. As he stood there trying to ascertain if he really could hear words the small voice in his head spoke up again, admonishing him for losing focus of his initial task.

Naruto continued to walk forward, he wouldn't want to just stand here and forget all about what he was doing. Still, even as he walked, he felt like the wind and the trees were having a quiet conversation around him. Due to his experience in Konoha he could feel when someone was talking about him behind his back, the participants in this conversation may have been vastly different to those he was used to but if his gut feeling was anything to by then their conversations were similar.

"Can you guys talk?" Naruto finally called out to the trees. It was an interesting idea.

Plants were among his best friends and sometimes when he was really troubled by something and felt he couldn't talk to anyone else he often vented his feelings to his plants or some wild flowers in the forest in Konoha or even to the class plant. It always helped. Of course they never said anything but for him to be listened to without being criticised or mocked was more than enough.

"You know, some of my best friends back home are plants. Mmmhm. One of them is called Asami because her flowers close in the night and then in the morning they open up again and looks really beautiful. Then there's also Chie because she always seems to know when I'm troubled and feels kinda like a grandmother. Then you can't ever forget Yasushi. He's the tallest plant in my house and he's really healthy and peaceful so I call him Yasushi."

In that manner Naruto continued rambling on and eventually it left the subject of all the types of plants he had seen and his impressions on them and moved over to talks about any and everything. In this forest just talking, Naruto felt less uncomfortable than he had previously. It also helped that the trees and wind seemed to have stilled somewhat giving him the impression that they were listening to what he said and the gentle breeze or rustling of leaves that sometimes caught his attention struck him as replies from his audience.

His awareness of his surroundings dulled significantly and he just quietly walked in whatever direction he felt like. This was like an adventure. Part of the perks of being a ninja was getting to go on dangerous adventures and do fun things. This whole journey to the infinity library had been like that. Unexpected and surprising things popped up everywhere. He had challenged a pack of talking wolves, been chased by a frightening monster, fallen asleep while falling through the air, floated in a bubble, met a girl with the ears and tails of a wolf (not a dog as he had originally thought), seen horses made of water, seen strange and monstrous creatures, talked with a giant purple lizard that had gifted him with a special potion that healed all wounds, ridden in an 'air balloon' on his journey to find a castle in the clouds and now he was on a QUEST to get a bookkeeper's key and prove that he was worthy for the duties of this 'bookkeeper' person.

He happily told of all his adventures to the trees he was SURE were listening to him. Now he was in a relaxed mode he could retell his tales, even the dangerous ones, with an air of pride and wonder- accounting all his recent adventures with excitement and a bit of exaggeration. These were the stories he could tell to his friends and classmates when he got home.

Now that he thought about it though he had not yet defeated a monster on his own, all of the fighting had been done by Nerra with him in the background not doing anything. He was on his own now and that meant he might have to fight some monsters. He frowned at that thought. Naruto Uzumaki was not a coward, no one could say that. He was an eight year old child who was ready and willing to face any and everything head on but many of the things he had seen in this place were out of his class. His taijutsu was weak, that he would not deny, and he sucked at the jutsu's so far. All he had was his stamina but most of the things Nerra had defeated with such ease were so much faster than him that he could not even use the strategy of wearing them out and defeating them that he normally used in spars- they would have caught him long before he was able to even begin that plan. And how do you set up an ambush when you have no idea of what you are trying to trap? He had some ninja wire on him and a few other supplies that may be useful eventually if push came to shove and he hoped they would help. Then he couldn't even get started on his weapon skills which were a little below average. He had been working on it for some time before he had come to the infinity library but with his lack of speed and accuracy, even if he had weapons would he have been able to rely on that at all?

Once he had gotten the key- and he would get the key- he would have to work harder at all his skills and techniques to lessen his powerlessness if he ever had the chance to be in such a situation again. And he was almost certain he would since becoming a ninja meant that you got to do things like this all the time (well that is not strictly correct but forgive an eight year old his dreams of excitement and fame gotten through defeat of monsters and villains). It really was funny the kind of things you could discover in a library.

The feeling of something heavy and moist wrapping around his waist and hoisting him up was what finally drew Naruto out of his thoughts and conversation. Naruto gave a surprised squawk before trying to determine what was happening to him. In a few moments he was able to determine that what had wrapped itself around his waist, and was now drawing him up at a fast rate, was a tree vine. Looking down on the floor where he had been standing only a few seconds before Naruto saw what looked like a big cat. A really, really big cat! A really, really big, black cat with sharp fangs and claws, the shell of an armadillo and a set of red eyes to match. And there wasn't just one of these really, really big black cats with all the dangerous accessories there were at least half a dozen of them.

His eyes widened in shock. He would have been cat food if the tree vine had not pulled him out of there in time.

"Thank you." He breathed out in gratitude.

Some seconds later another vine handed him a strange fruit which was dark blue with red spots, which he also accepted gratefully and began to eat on his way up- by now the vine was moving at a pace that was much reduced from its previous speed. He understood that this was the tree's way of telling him that his thanks had been accepted.

Eventually they reached their destination and Naruto found himself on a branch bigger than four or five of Konoha's main streets joined together. Naruto was deposited on the branch in a sitting position and when he attempted to stand up the vine patted him on the head in a manner that told him he was to remain sitting. Not wishing to anger his new friend he complied and in a few seconds the second vine deposited a small pile of fruits in front of him. There were three more of the first fruit which Naruto had been given on his way up. He happily ate the pile of fruit and put a couple of the smaller fruit into his pocket for later consumption.

Doing that brought his hand into something he had previously forgotten about- the crystal vial with the purple liquid in it. As Naruto removed it from his pocket the vine seemed to take an interest in it and performed a motion that demonstrated its wish to see the liquid up close, so Naruto handed the vial to it. The vine turned it this way and that studying the bottle before it finally disappeared into the trees still holding the vial.

Naruto wondered if he should say something but eventually he shrugged his shoulder and sat there bored sure that it would be returned to him. Unwilling to get up and risk offending the tree he lay down to study the leaves not even noticing that wind began to move in a strange pattern till he drifted into a peaceful sleep brought about by the calming feel of the breeze.

He was awoken by the sound of a squeaky voice and shaking motions to his arms. He opened his eyes and was greeted to the sight of an unusually big, white chipmunk that had been trying to get him to wake.

"You're up." The chipmunk squeaked in what could be described as an indignant tone. "Elara here woke me up to come show you the way and then I get here and you're out cold. Then she tells me that I've got to let you be and wait! Impossible I tell you! Women are simply impossible!" the cute little creature rolled its eyes threw its hands up in the air to show its exasperation. The leaves rustled a bit and Naruto got the feeling that the tree was giggling "You better remember that kid," the squirrel said finishing with its muttering and turning its attention back to Naruto.

"Remember what?" The small boy asked with confusion.

"That women are impossible of course! Trust me, you learn that lesson now and in a few years time you're going to be thanking me for it. Just this one piece of information will save you a whole bunch of troubles in the future- trust me boy, I know!"

"Um, okay?" Naruto said unsure of how to receive that piece of advice.

"Good to hear you say that son. Now why don't you tell me your name?"

"My name is Naruto Uzumaki- future Hokage of Konoha."

"Oh ho ho¬" the chipmunk laughed "Good to see that you've got some ambition. So you came to this place to get assistance with becoming this hokage person eh? Well then, being hokage must be quite some chore if you think you need help with it. But like I said, a little bit of ambition is not half bad in a young one. Almost thought you were a big fat lazy for a while there. Me, I've got loads of energy and still feel I can never have enough of that stuff. Sugar's pretty good for helping with that and so's coffee but that stuff is harder to get than the other stuff and not many out there willing to have pity on this old soul and hand me some of the good strong stuff. Ah I remember back in the old days-"

It was at this point that Elara interrupted by slapping the chipmunk upside his head.

Naruto had been listening to the chipmunk with some interest- that squeaky voice was rather curious. Personally he couldn't see why it liked that bitter stuff. He had tried some once in the Hokage's office and couldn't see why adults liked it so much- it was horrible.

"See boy- told you women were insufferable."

This earned him another slap upside the head- this one much harder than the last.

"Fine!" It huffed out "I won't poison his mind with that idea." It said out loud "Even if it is true." It muttered under its breath.

One again he was hit; this time with more force than the last two times so that he actually toppled over and landed on his face.

"Okay! I get the point." It groused as it got back to its feet. "Naruto Uzumaki, right?"

Naruto nodded once. He actually felt some empathy for the little creature. After all he had similar experiences when dealing with Iruka after he, Naruto, had played some pranks on people he felt deserved it.

"The name's Loki." The squirrel continued "The beautiful lady over here is known as Elara." He gestured to the tree.

Naruto turned to the tree trunk and bowed deeply. "Thank you very much for everything Elara- san."

"No need for all this formality." Loki said and waved his hand in a dismissive fashion. "Anyway, the reason I'm here is because the pretty darling asked me to show you to your destination using the upper routes. Down there," he said gesturing to the ground below "is a dangerous place for a youngling to be so she wants you moving through the branches where you're gonna be guaranteed the protection of the trees under her command."

"Oh. Thank you Elara- san." He said again.

"She says it's no problem." Loki said "So mind telling your destination kid?"

'_The Castle' _a small voice in his head said and Naruto immediately repeated that to the two that were listening.

"The castle?" the creature asked again. "Well we'd figured as much with the direction you were taking but you never know with all these things. This way then," Loki said and began to lead Naruto down a path when a vine tapped his shoulders.

The second vine that had taken his vial away from him was there and holding out his vial to him. Or at least he thought it was his. Naruto had almost forgotten about that. The design on the bottle was a little different and the material was different to the touch. In addition to this, the contents it contained had a colour that was slightly different to the original. But Naruto took it politely anyway without any suspicion.

"Thank you very much Elara- san." He said once more with a last bow.

The vine tapped him on his shoulder and when he looked up it wrapped itself around him in an imitation of a hug which Naruto awkwardly tried to return.

"She says to take care and to come visit sometime if you ever get the chance and knowledge to do so." Loki told him.

"I will." Naruto told the tree with a big smile before taking off after Loki.

Elara smiled to herself as he departed. She would like to see him again sometime and she would, even if she had to engineer the circumstances as well. Hm, maybe she should have given him more of those budding berries to take with him. He was pretty small and the nutrients would have nourished his growing body and helped it to develop nicely. Oh, well there was always the next time.

Naruto ran alongside Loki for a long time. The chipmunk seemed to have so much energy and speed and always darted far ahead of Naruto before turning back and telling him to hurry up his pace. Many times the squirrel had not only criticised him for being too slow but had also praised his stamina for being able to keep moving for a long while.

"Now all you got to do is bring up that speed to match your energy and get a little coffee in you and you won't be a half- bad companion." Loki had said once with a pleased look on his face. Naruto had never been praised for his stamina before, only told that he needed to sit still long enough to learn something useful. That was definitely not a praise but rather the admonishment of a very annoyed teacher. "Many of these people nowadays are all a bunch of lazy bones without enough energy to move even their own fingers. All they have to do is get some life in them and they'll be much happier people for it. But noooo they all feel that they're fine just the way they are. They don't know what they're missing when they don't have enough energy to get off their butts and do all the things that would allow them to enjoy life more. Now that's why I love being a chipmunk. Even the ones that don't talk ain't all that bad. Oh and squirrels! Yeah those guys are all right. And ants- can't fault those ones till they steal all your food and some try to eat you too," Naruto's brain did a double take on that before deciding that that was a normal occurrence in this place.

"but that's not the point," Loki continued "the point is that they're a decent kinda folk. And I'm telling you this now kid so you better remember it: you put that energy of yours to good use; don't let them turn you into a lazy ass, and drink as much coffee as you can get your hands on and you'll find yourself a happy trooper indeed. None of that alcohol stuff. Never been able to tell why people seem to like it so much- that stuff slows you down way too much for me to like it any."

It was to the accompaniment of words an advice like these from Loki that Naruto made his way through the upper routes of the forest.

The upper routes that Naruto and Loki followed were made from the intertwining of the huge branches of the ginormous trees of the forest. They intertwined and interlocked so completely that the number of times Naruto could see past the road at his feet into the lower levels of the trees was very few and at times deliberate as those openings were actually passages to the lower or upper levels of the tree road. There were several routes that could be taken: some seemed narrower and some seemed to be restricted and some were just plain inviting. The hole in the tree trunks that were sometimes pointed out by Loki could lead underground or above ground or anywhere really but Loki figured that Naruto "best be getting on with his business" and that exploring could wait. That didn't mean that the chipmunk didn't point out interesting places if they passed by them.

A few times Naruto caught a glimpse of a tail or a body moving between the paths and asked Loki about that.

"Haha, these upper areas are a little more peaceful than some of the levels you'll be to. All kinds of folk live up in these trees. Right now this place is even more deserted because of all the festival preparations once the fruits harvest comes around. You come up here another time when you're not in so much of a hurry and I'll introduce you to a couple of friends of mine. You'll love them. And I tell you that no one knows how to make a nutty fruit pie or brew a nice strong shell of coffee like some of the people up here do."

Having such a proposal offered up Naruto was hoping that he could in fact find some time to visit.

Once, Loki had darted far in front of Naruto, who was once again lagging behind by a little. A yellow light coming out from a hole in a tree trunk caught Naruto's interest and he had turned from the path he was following to find out what exactly was causing that light. So kneeling down by the hole he looked into it only to be hit right between the eyes by something hard.

"Ouch." The young blond yelped in surprise as he pulled his face from the hole with alacrity. But whatever it was was not done and even after he had redrawn he was continuously pelted with hard objects which his mind identified as nuts.

Luckily for him Loki had heard his cry and had returned to calm the angry squirrel whose hole he had peeked into.

"Oh?" an excited voice had cried out in joy "a visitor? Is he coming to the festival? He will come right?!"

"Only if he survives those bruises you gave him dear." Loki answered back the excited voice.

This time Naruto who was now reasonably sure he would not be pelted with nuts opened his eyes and identified that the owner of the second voice was a big female squirrel, a little smaller than Loki, wearing a red bandanna with black polka dots and red gypsy pants.

"Don't be silly!" the squirrel said. "Those bruises were nothing, he'll be fine. He's a boy right? Boys aren't supposed to be weak."

"Aye. And females aren't to have the throwing power of a miniature canon but they do anyway." Loki shook his head and beckoned Naruto over.

"Naruto meet Reina, Reina meet Naruto."

"Pleasure to meet you Naruto." The squirrel said reaching out a hand which Naruto shook.

"Sorry about those bruises, thought you were an intruder. Haha, when next you come back I'll be glad to give you a nice tour of this place so you don't have to be afraid to come visit."

"Thank you Reina- chan." Naruto said.

"No problem, no problem. I'm always glad to have a visitor, or two, or three, ah maybe a bit more, to visit so it's no trouble at all. Come any time, anytime at all and you'll always be welcome. In fact if you ever come over you can ditch Loki and come to me. No point for someone so young to be hanging around the geezer."

"Hey!" the chipmunk protested."Geezer I may be but I've still got ten times the amount of life you young ones got."

Reina ignored him completely "So where you headed? Since you're a visitor and all that, you got a particular reason for coming this way?"

"I'm here to get a key." Naruto answered.

"You mean like a bookkeeper's key? Sounds fun."

"Is it?" Naruto asked. He had had no idea what he was getting himself into when he had set out on this quest.

He was both excited and nervous about this and when something inspires either both or one of these feelings in you, you tended to want to know something about that thing and at the same time know nothing about it. To a kid with an adventurous heart a bit of a mystery was needed for every adventure so they did not want to know everything but knowing just a bit never hurt. It was this sort of reasoning that led him to ask: "What's it like?" to Reina. Maybe she could give him some clue as to what to be prepared for. Was that cheating? Nah, it was like when Iruka told them what areas they had to review for a test without actually telling them what the test was about. Plus, after having travelled with Nerra for a bit he had realised that adventures actually had dangers involved. And while this thought did not manage to quell his excitement it did make him more wary than he would have been when he had first arrived at this library.

"Not sure. Never been on one myself but I heard that you have to fight monsters while trying to find your key. Also heard that the creatures are more high level than the ones out here in the forest. But I bet they're not that tough. Puh, you can take 'em. I'm sure of it! You're not going to chicken out are you?!"

"Of course not!" Naruto told her, such a thought had been furthest from him mind. "I'm Naruto Uzumaki, the future hokage of Konoha; No way I'm backing out!"

"That's the spirit!" Reina cheered him on punching a fist in the air. "Go in there and show them who's the boss!"

"Yeah!" Naruto agreed with his eyes burning and ready for a fight.

"And then after you're done you can come back here and play in the festival!" Reina continued, the fire in her eyes also burning brightly.

"Yeah!" Naruto agreed again.

"Oho!" Loki joined in the cheer "It's good to see a bit of energy from the young ones." He said.

"Ah! But before you leave I've got something for you." her face lit up in a grin "Wait here!" she said and ran inside. A few seconds later she emerged and handed Naruto some acorn sized cakes. "Have these as an apology and a good luck wish. Eat them when you get hungry."

"Thanks." Naruto told her with a smile of his own before he put them into his pocket.

"I'll be giving these out at the festival so make sure to come okay?" Reina told him "Right now I have somewhere I ought to be so see you around." With that she gave a wave, grabbed a basket from just inside the hole and ran off, disappearing in the maze of routes only seconds later.

After that it was peaceful journeys for Naruto and Loki. At some time during the journey the whole tree was lit up by twinkling lights to compensate for the darkness that descended as the day gave way to night.

Finally they reached the highest part of the tree where an owl slept. But this wasn't a normal owl but an owl that was easily, several times Naruto's own size. Last time he checked owls had been smaller than him. But Naruto didn't bat an eyelid he had seen many animals that were bigger than he had known them to be, one of them was standing beside him right now.

Loki woke up the sleeping bird and had a few words with it, a few moments later the owl faced Naruto and smiled at him kindly.

"Senshi this is Naruto, Naruto this is Senshi." Loki introduced the two to each other.

"Pleasure to meet you Naruto." Senshi said in a pleasant voice. He didn't sound like an owl or how he thought an owl would sound, was a thought that registered itself in Naruto's brain.

"I'll be taking you the rest of the way to the castle." he said and Naruto nodded.

"Climb on." The gigantic bird said and Naruto did, albeit with difficulty.

"See you around Naruto." Loki shouted as Naruto finally managed to get himself on the back of the owl and settle into his surprisingly soft feathers.

"Yes. Bye Loki!" Naruto waved exuberantly at the chipmunk as the owl prepared to take off.

"Remember to be careful and make sure you come back for the festival 'kay?"

"Of course!" The blond said. By now a huge grin was splitting his face. He was excited, nervous, but excited nonetheless. He now had one more story to tell his friends when he returned to Konoha- because he WOULD return to Konoha!

Senshi took off. The view it presented as he soared with the moon in the background and Naruto on his back was like something out of an adventure novel.

'_I bet he feels like he really is in an adventure novel.'_ Loki chuckled to himself before leaving to retire for night and determined that he would be back the next morning to wait for Naruto's return. _'Good kid that one. Lots of energy in him.' _Soon he had disappeared below the top branches and was gone from sight.

* * *

Iruka stared at the papers on his desk that had to be graded and groaned. This wasn't fair but he had to finish grading all these papers before the next day. What a nice time Mizuki had chosen to go out on a mission. Oh well there was no point in him complaining over it. He guessed the ramen could wait till the next day, and here he had been looking forward to it. He gave a long sigh.

"Then, time to get to work." he said to no one. "Ramen will have to wait."

_'And Naruto too.' _a small voice in the back of his mind said. Iruka pushed the thought away. His going to get ramen and Naruto had nothing to do with each other. Or at least that's what he tried to convince himself. The little voice in the back of his head knew better.


	4. Step 2: Keys

**DISCLAIMER:**** I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO NARUTO. BE IT THE RIGHTS TO THE ANIME, MANGA OR MERCHANDISE. THIS IS A FANFICTION.**

**AN1: **Thanks to everyone for their support thus far.

**AN2**: The onager was a Roman siege engine that is a type of catapult; The onager consisted of a large frame placed on the ground to whose front end a vertical frame of solid timber was rigidly fixed. A vertical spoke that passed through a rope bundle fastened to the frame had a sling attached which contained a projectile. (or so WIKIPEDIA says.)

* * *

To fire it, the spoke or arm was forced down, against the tension of twisted ropes or other springs, by a windlass, and then suddenly released. As the sling swung outwards, one end would release, as with a staff-sling, and the projectile would be hurled forward. The arm would then be caught by a padded beam or bed, when it could be winched back again.

"That's how the feather queen won against the chief of the Dusk tribe." Senshi concluded his tale.

"Wow!" Naruto said in awe "That was so cool! Serves them right! Next time they won't attack like that."

The light sound of a chuckle floated to Naruto's ears.

Naruto sat astride the large bird completely enraptured with his tale- why oh why couldn't the history books in Konoha be written with the flare which Senshi added to his story telling? So, maybe Senshi cut out some of the boring bits but the books in Konoha made even the parts that were supposed to be interesting boring.

Thoughts of home drifted to his head and he wondered how long he had been gone. _'Iruka sensei will probably lecture me for skipping school'_ he gave a little smile as he imagined the scene. _'I wonder if he'll believe me when I tell him where I was?' _that was certainly something to think about. Whenever he played errant from school without a good reason (pranks) Iruka always demanded a reason. Naruto usually gave some sort of excuse before relenting to Iruka's scowl, and then with a pout and slumped shoulders would admit- in a very petulant tone- that the class he had that day was not one he liked so he had missed it. But this was actually the very first time that he had missed school for more than a day and had nothing planned. Hmm… he would have to rectify that, now wouldn't he? What prank to play? What prank to play…?

"This is our destination." Senshi's quiet voice brought him from his internal musing as he began descending to the ground. All around them the wall of the biggest castle Naruto had ever seem loomed above them. Keep in mind that while Naruto had not seen many castles he had definitely seen Rigel's castle which was also extremely large. Small he may be and without a doubt that may have clouded his judgement as to what was big and what was really big but this castle was so big that it made Senshi look small in comparison, which was saying something. It was made of a grey stones and gave off an ancient feel.

Senshi landed in the large courtyard someway before the large, black, metal door that stood open allowing the light from inside the castle to filter outdoor to where Naruto now stood on the lawn.

"Good luck." Senshi said before he took off, the wind from his wings causing an unprepared Naruto to fall over.

"Wow." The little blond muttered as he got to his feet. He had just gotten another detail to incorporate into his amazing adventure tale when he returned to Konoha.

With that he turned and walked towards the open door. A grin split his face. It was his time to shine.

From the shadows a set of cold red eyes watched Naruto's progress with interest. All around it the bodies of humanoid monsters littered the ground.

0101010101010101010101101010 1010101010101010101010101010 1100110010110010101010101010 1010010100101010101010101010 101010101010101011010010101

The interior of the palace was filled with weapons.

That was the first thing Naruto noted with interest. He had walked past the door, along a short corridor and down a set of stairs to reach what he actually considered the interior of the castle. Even as he had begun descending the stairs he had noticed that at their bottom there were several weapons.

Turning his head from side to side so he could study the room around him he noticed that all along the walls, displayed via different methods, were different types of weapons. There were swords and hammers and bows with their arrows and shields and weird contraptions on chains and he even saw a single needle proudly displaced in a glass case hung from the wall.

Naruto had been walking in the direction the small voice in his head was telling him to when a movement at the corner of his eyes caught his attention. He did not turn his head but his taut nerves which he had forcefully reigned in after entering the room were now back in full force screaming at him that there was something wrong. This time Naruto did not force them down- something about the room had changed, not the appearance but the atmosphere. He felt so heavy.

Before he could listen to his nerves he saw what he guessed were the cause of the change in the air. The two were slightly larger than the warden's dog and vaguely reminded him of a scorpion he had seen the day he visited the pet shop looking for a pet. He had been feeling lonely so the hokage had suggested him getting a pet and Naruto had been enthusiastic. In the shop he had seen many interesting animals, fishes and scorpions and parrots and hamsters and cats and dogs. Naruto had been fascinated with all the animals but in the end had chosen a plant- the parrot was a close second choice but was no match for Naruto's new, green friend.

If he were to try to describe these creatures in front of him he would say they looked like they were made of the skeleton of a scorpion whose bones were died pure black. And instead of the quick scuttling movement exhibited by the intriguing creature it was more of a heavy, creepy 'crawling towards you' kind of a movement. And that head (it was a head wasn't it?) did not belong on that body, that was for sure.

For a while they stared at each other in a sort of show down with time seeming to slow down and each breath seemed calculated. Then the spell was broken as the creatures leapt at a speed that belied their earlier movement. Naruto dodged to the side but was not fast enough because the tail of one of the creatures scratched against the palm of his left hand drawing blood.

'_Dang!'_ Naruto thought. He hoped that this thing, unlike its lookalike, was not poisonous.

Without waiting to try and confirm it Naruto rolled on his back ad got to his feet and began running. The things were soon running beside him on either of the walls and were easily keeping up with him. Naruto abruptly slowed down his speed and leaned back so that the tail of the 'scorpion' shot past his front and only caused a tear in his shirt, not impale him. However a loss of balance caused him to fall on his back. The tail of the second creature immediately came down intending to pierce him right through his stomach and would have succeeded if not for an impressive show of agility in which Naruto raised his lower body till he was only resting on his lower back so that the tail pierced through the stone floor instead. Following with the motion Naruto tumbled and was quickly back on his feet and running again.

'_Go left!' _something ordered and choosing to trust the voice Naruto complied.

'_What can I do? I can't out run these things.'_ He thought as he took the turn.

Actually he didn't want these things at his back either he thought as he stumbled and fell to the floor. That was the only thing that stopped him from being impaled through the heart. Naruto may not have known that but he knew that if he had not fallen at the moment he would be dead. His face paled at the thought. His mind quickly reminded him of what had happened the last time he had fallen down and he quickly rolled to the left just before three tails came right through where his stomach had been.

The source of the third tail became apparent when he spotted another of the scorpion monster that had joined the earlier two; then he noted a third; then a fourth; and a fifth…

His eyes widened and his brain began to panic before remembering exactly who it belonged to. Naruto Uzumaki had no intentions to die here and by extension his brain also had no intention to be killed this way- he needed a plan and it was going to get him one. He reached into one of his pants pockets and pulled out a smoke bomb which was conveniently placed for quick escapes after pranks. It may not be much of a plan but if it worked then it worked.

A quick toss and the area around him became covered with smoke. Hoping that their sight was obscured enough he bolted for the door his mind screamed at him was his escape. His hopes proved to be false when he felt something cold, hard and heavy collide with his left leg.

"Ahhh!" he screamed in pain as his leg buckled beneath him.

Almost immediately he screamed he saw another tail shoot out right at him. With a lot of effort he threw himself to the side and managed to avoid it only to be hit by a second tail that impacted heavily with his right ribs knocking him through a glass display case and into a wall, his head meeting said wall painfully. His head throbbed and was threatening him with a black out. But Naruto wasn't ready to give up just yet so he grit his teeth and bribed his unhappy body with a promise of as much ramen he could afford and/or weasel out of the adults in his life. His left leg still hurt and now had the right ribs to keep it company. Naruto wouldn't have minded half as much if the two of them didn't seem to have gotten into a serious competition to see who could cause him more pain. He needed a piece of wood or two and some bandages to fix himself up. And a walking stick wouldn't hurt. He made a quick mental note to always carry a first aid kit with him from that day onward.

But now was not the time to be thinking about this. He was already nowhere near fast enough to out run those things with full mobility; now that his leg had been injured he was an even easier picking. Once again he rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a small black ball. It was a new product at the pranking shop he frequented and he had been grinning with anticipation of its potential.

His grin intensified even more when he saw a staff lying very conveniently on the floor beside him. He quickly grabbed it and then crawled behind a set of display cases that provided him cover from the front and right. With the wall to his left the only way those things could approach him was from the top.

His thought process was quickly discredited when the display case in front of him seemingly exploded. Naruto brought up his hands to protect his face from the small fragments of glass that burst forth as the upper part of the case, which was glass, shattered. With the smoke now gone he had a full view of the two things that were chasing him.

A small weight on his head caught his attention. He reached up his hand to remove it and he grinned when he saw what it was. The small object happened to be the small wooden slingshot that had been in the case just destroyed by the monster. With a smooth and fluid motion he shot the first black ball at the head of the first monster. The shop keeper had assured him that the stuff was high quality and not defective but Naruto had never had a chance to test the out. Well you know what they say: 'No time like the present'. The monster tried to jump away but the ball still hit and exploded into a black and gooey substance that stuck all over its face and some of its body. When the thing brought up its tail to cut the stuff of its face, its tail also got stuck.

He let several more of the black balls fly the monsters tried to dodge them but every time Naruto's aim seemed to be spot on. He was definitely going to get more of these once he got back home and he was definitely keeping the slingshot.

When he was sure that the monsters were hindered enough he caught up the staff and moved towards his destination as quickly as he could manage.

It was with relief he yanked it open and passed through, shutting it behind him as he did so. Then, not taking any chances, he put a good distance between himself and the door before he allowed himself to collapse against one of the display cases ready to listen to his brain and take a short nap.

'_Where is this?' _he wondered looking at where he was. The place was some sort of indoor archery range that was bigger than his whole apartment building fifty times over and had no roof. Just like the previous room this place was filled with all sorts of weapons though most of them looked like throwing weapons. Well he wasn't surprised, if this place was to practice targeting stuff then it made sense that this place was filled with throwing weapons and targets.

'_This is where my key is_.' He thought calmly. Then realising what he just thought he started. This was where his key was! He had no idea how he knew or why he was so sure but Rigel had told him it was instinct so he let it slide.

He had to start looking for it quickly before any more monsters came- he was in no position to defend himself right now. So where to start…

Slowly his eyes tilted back until he could see the contents of the display case behind him- a matching set of an axe and a shield. He doubted that the key would be lying around on the floor somewhere so it was only logical that he look in the cases right?

With that he struggled to his feet and opened the case to look for his key. The first thing he needed to do was get remove the contents to get a better look and he did just that. His free hand closed around the shield but the moment it left the case it became too heavy for him to hold and he, having to lean on the walking stick, fell to the ground as he lost his balance.

The stones on the shied began to glow and he watched it dumbly unsure of what to expect. There was a flash of light and when it was gone there was a man standing there holding not only the shield but also the axe. The man looked young but had white hair, with a single red streak running through at one side, tied in a ponytail. He had really light green eyes, was tall and wore a long, long sleeved, hooded white shirt under white and gold armour along with white, slightly puffy trousers; large golden gloves that was at least partly metal, had four white stones embedded in it over his knuckles and white coloured lining; boots with the mouth and feet being made of a white material with some gold lining and everything in between was grey metal. He also had a golden belt that had two grey and gold pouches attached to it.

Naruto stared at the man in front of him for a short time before finally finding his voice

"Serin?" he asked the strange man next to him. He was unsure why the name was so familiar to him but it was and he knew that it belonged to the man standing next to him at that moment.

"We finally meet." The man said with a big smile. "And just he time too." He said and his smile grew even bigger than previously. He looked straight ahead behind Naruto, raising his axe.

Curious, Naruto turned his head around and noticed that flying behind him were a number of huge black ants with wings like fire flies that were transparent and flapping or vibrating really quickly as they came for them. He forced himself not to groan- ants… really?! He was reaching into one of his pants pockets for more of the black balls when Serin swung his axe twice and Naruto saw a number of the ants fall to the ground split in half. After that display he relaxed and watched as the man got rid of the ants with ease. Whenever he swung the axe Naruto felt a strong gust of wind and then the ants fell to the floor, one piece more than they had been at the beginning. Soon the ants were retreating and the man was still sending his invisible wind blades at them.

"Cowards!" he called after them "Come back and fight me!"

None of the ants answered his challenge as they flew away as quickly as possible. Once they were out of sight he tuned to Naruto with a huge grin that almost split his face in half.

"It's too bad that those weren't the red types. If they were then they would have been more of a challenge. This type is poisonous and vicious but as long as you keep them far away from you you'll survive somehow. Tch, such cowards though and here I was hoping for a nice fight to get rid of a bit of my annoyance."

"Do I know you?" Naruto asked. The man's voice was familiar and he knew his name so that had to count for something right?

"Nope!" Serin answered cheerfully as he broke one of the target stands with a kick and then proceeded to break it into the size and shape he wanted, using his hands.

"So how I know your name?" Naruto asked, confused.

"That's because I told you." Serin told him. Then he walked over to Naruto and using the wood pieces from the target as splints, he pulled out a small roll of bandages from one of the pouches at his side and proceeded to help Naruto wrap his leg.

"You told me?" Naruto asked confused. "I've never even met you before so how could you have told me?"

"You really should be more aware of what's going on around you kid. I've been communicating with you since you entered passed the first door."

"Thanks," Naruto told the man as he finished wrapping up his leg. "So you're the one who was telling me where to go?" he asked after a short pause. He had felt that the voice in his head was foreign but he had only just figured out why "That's why your voice was so familiar."

"I'm so glad you finally came." Serin said. "So, you ready to leave this place?" he asked.

Naruto shook his head at the man. "There's still something I need to get here."

"A key?"

Naruto looked up to the man, surprised. He had honestly forgotten about the key.

He shook his head "I don't know. I just feel like there's something I have to do before I leave this place." Truth be told now that he knew Serin was the one that was calling him here he no longer had the strong feeling that his key was in this place. In fact he felt that it was someplace else so he was going to go with his gut feeling again and see what he found this time. He did not feel any regret whatsoever at not finding his key here because he now had someone here that could help him.

Serin nodded his head in understanding at Naruto's words.

"You're going to come with me right?" Naruto asked him. To him, even though they had only just met he felt that it was completely unthinkable to leave the man here. This feeling was not born from the thought that he needed protection but rather from the thought that this man was a companion and a friend. Naruto had not thought about it much but if he had he would had he would have concluded that the reason he trusted this stranger was because the man had saved him from a certain death.

"Of course!" Serin said with a wide smile. "There're some pretty good creatures to fight in this place and I've got nothing better to do."

Oddly, he resembled a child who was going out to get ice cream or, in Naruto's case, ramen.

A grin broke out across Naruto's face as he turned around and began towards the door that would lead him to his next destination.

"Wait!" Serin called out and Naruto turned to him with a questioning eyebrow raised.

"Get on." Serin told him as he offered his back to Naruto.

"What?" Naruto asked a little surprised at the offer but his mind already rebelling against it.

"You're really hurt and it would be best if I carried you there."

"No," Naruto shook his head "I can walk."

"Not without that walking stick." He motioned to the stick Naruto was holding. "We need to move as fast as we can so that we can finish here and get you to bed. You're still eight, you need your sleep."

Naruto's mind still had an issue with being piggybacked but he had to admit that Serin was right- not about him still being eight and needing his sleep (though he was right there too) but rather about Naruto slowing them down. Naruto was stubborn and dense at times but he had to admit that Serin had a point.

"Okay." He finally agreed grudgingly as he got onto Serin's back.

"Good. Then why don't you show me the way so we can finish with this?"

Naruto nodded though his partner didn't see him.

"That door at the far end." He pointed out.

"Okay, then let's go!" Serin said enthusiastically

0101010101010101001010101011 1011010001100101010100001011 0101101010110010110001010110 1010101011010110100101101010 10101010100101011101011001

With the Axe wielding man with him Naruto found that getting through the Castle was an easy task. Even while carrying him Serin still made it look easy to defeat the monsters.

The creatures that the two encountered on their way to… wherever they were going, were things that Naruto was fairly sure did not exist in the real world. He could not be fully sure because he knew that he was not the most informed person around. Even taking that into consideration, they just did not feel like anything he had encountered before. Then again, he knew that his experience with the world was also really limited so he was not going to judge.

The had been moving for some time, going further and further down the castle as Naruto directed him on their way. Finally they reached the dungeon- Naruto may not know that much but he knew without a doubt that this place was a dungeon.

This place was much darker than the rest of the castle. The only sources of light were the torches flickering with dull yellow flames, illuminating grey stone walls covered with moss and dirt. Naruto was surprised to see that behind locked cell doors, with bars so thin it would be impossible to slip through, were iron cases that contained weapons.

One particular weapon caught his attention and caused him to stare at it for as long as he could; it was a katana with a blood red hilt and a wicked glint on its stainless and, no doubt sharp, blade. Naruto stared at the blade, entranced. It looked really cool and would probably make Sasuke jealous. But he did not want it. The glint on the blade was something that terrified him. For whatever reason, he felt that the blade, no matter how cool it looked, was not a weapon that he would willingly hold or use.

With no embellishments whatsoever Naruto would describe this place as creepy, unfriendly, uninviting, unwelcoming, deserted, overly empty, too damn silent, eerie, unearthly, spooky, or foreboding. Several times he felt the urge to tell Serin to turn around and walk away but like hell he was going to listen! He was Naruto Uzumaki damn it and he was not going to cower like a pansy and run away when he had something to achieve. Honestly, even if he did not have something to achieve he would have stayed here just to prove a point… then again maybe not. This place seemed like the perfect place for a ghost to show up and he did not like ghosts.

Still they advanced. Eventually they came to a doorway at the end of the passage. Naruto directed Serin through it and along one of the passageways. As they progressed the corridor became darker and darker until Serin decided that they would definitely need a light source further on and took one of the torches from its stand to use to light their way.

Finally they arrived at a room filled with all sort of old items. There were dusty ceramic pots with strange markings and dusty old oil lamps; there were torn tapestries and broken wooden furniture; there were scrolls in fragile looking papers and dusty books piled up in corners.

Among all these lay a long wooden case propped up against the wall. Naruto asked Serin to let him down so he could examine the case. Once he was set down he laid the case on the floor before lifting the lid. Lying there in the bare and empty wooden case was a golden, black and red staff like weapon that had black diamond shaped tip at one end just after a pair of small red angel wings that were closed together almost completely. The other end had a tip like an arrow head, only bigger, and on either side of that tip were two 'S' shaped blades- the 'S' shapes were less curvy than a normal 'S'. The inside of the two blades were shaped like triangles and fit around (against?) the arrow head perfectly so that if someone was not studying it carefully it looked more like one surface with a sharp edge than three blades locked together perfectly. The arrow head was made of a glinting black metal while the other two blades were silver.

Naruto examined the staff curiously. The weapon was very familiar to him if not for some differences. Just as had happened with the shield he picked it up but then found it too heavy for him to lift and so was forced to drop it. And again as he dropped it, it began to give out a bright white light which for a moment illuminated the dark room before it became too bright and forced him to close his eyes.

When he opened them again he saw, standing there, a person who he become acquainted with standing there.

"Nerra?!" he asked. He was shocked to see her here.

She gave a single nod before motioning them to follow her.

"Come." She said before turning around and walking away, fully expecting the two males to follow her.

"Where are we going?" Naruto questioned.

"We're leaving."

"But this isn't the way we came in." he was confused. Why didn't they just leave the way they came?

Nerra did something he couldn't properly make out and a portion of the wall slid out of place and revealed a small, tight looking passage.

"We can't go back that way." Serin was the one who answered this time. "We would be overwhelmed with wardens before we could even get back to the dungeons."

Was he imagining it or was there a slight edge in Serin's voice? Well, that was not important right now-

"Wardens? Why?" he put his hand to his chin as he thought about it.

Nerra motioned for Serin to drop the torch that he held. He did as instructed but first put out the flame. The wall slid shut behind them with a dull thud. Nerra was in running in front and Serin piggy backed Naruto again before following her lead.

"Did it have something to do with those cells we saw earlier?" Naruto asked quietly. If Serin had appeared when Naruto picked up his shield and Nerra had appeared when Naruto picked up her staff then that meant that there were also people that would appear when anyone touched those weapons. Naruto also knew that it was criminals that were kept in prisons and dungeons were prisons. So when he added that up he figured that those weapons were the weapons of criminals. No one answered him.

"Where are we going?" Serin asked as they followed Nerra round another turn.

"This is a place that the wardens can't get to; it leads outside the castle walls."

"Doesn't that mean that they would catch us once we get out?" Serin asked.

"No. The wardens in there can't move too far from the dungeons. They might alert those outside the castle walls but because we haven't really broken any rules and we are not on their watch list they won't bother us." She said and after that Serin said no more.

"Once we pass the next turn stay close to my heels, move as fast as you can and try not to stumble or drop Naruto. Don't stop till you two are completely in the clear." Nerra ordered a few minutes later.

'_So sleepy.' _Naruto thought as Serin passed the turn. He gave a loud yawn but it was drowned out by the sound of something scraping the walls behind them and turned his head to look around. The walls behind them had closed together and were approaching them fast!

'_What?!' _his mind screamed.

Then Serin's speed picked up substantially. They were now moving so fast that Naruto could not see anything as they blurred past the grey stone walls. Naruto's hands tightened around Serin's neck so that he wouldn't mistakenly fall off.

Finally Naruto saw a light in front of them and only seconds later they burst out from the passage way into a tunnel with weird metal tracks on the floor. The walls that had been chasing them slammed behind them and Naruto turned back but the only evidence that anything had once been there were the small dust particles that were illuminated by the moon light coming in from the entrance of the tunnel.

With the danger now behind them they relaxed and calmly walked out of the tunnel into the cool night breeze. They had been walking for a few minutes and Naruto felt his eyes began to close when he heard the sound of flapping wings coming from above. Looking up he located the sound to belong to none other than the person who had brought him here.

"Senshi!" He greeted happily.

"It's good to see that you're alright Naruto." The bird replied. Of course he could see that the small boy was a little worse for the wear but he was alive and safe.

"Why don't you all get on?" He said, "I'll give you a ride back to the trees."

"Mm. Thank you." Naruto agreed before Serin lifted him onto the back of the bird.

Nerra climbed up in front of him and Serin sat at his back. After checking to ensure that they were all well-adjusted Senshi took off.

Naruto's was sleepy and as the cool breeze hit his face his mind began to drift off. A thought at the back of his mind was struggling to make itself known to the sleepy boy but it was not till the instant just before sleep claimed him that the thought was grasped by the small blond:

"You know… I never… got a key in the end…"

Naruto mumbled as he got on the boat to dreamland.

Nerra and Serin both heard him and exchanged a look with each other before Serin chuckled. If they could have seen Senshi's face they would have seen him was smiling too.

As they left the scene none of them noticed the piercing red eyes that watched them leave. Once Senshi was in the air and back on his way to the forest, the creature turned into a formless shadow and melded in with the shadows of the night.

* * *

Naruto awoke the next morning feeling sore all over. As his eyes opened to the sight of an unfamiliar room the memories from the previous night came flooding back and he sat up abruptly and in a panic only to get physical reminders of his mission the previous day.

"Ow!" he screamed as his he felt a sharp pain in his ribs.

"Naruto?!" a familiar voice called to him and a few minutes later the small figure of Reina rushed into the room.

"You're awake!" she said happily as she came over and help him get adjusted in his pillow. "How are you feeling?" she asked as she lifted the cup of water from the bedside table to his lips.

"Sore." He answered truthfully.

"I thought as much. It will soon be time to appear some more healing ointment. It will make you feel numb but it's much better than feeling as much pain as you are." She said.

"No need." Naruto told her.

"You're not planning on remaining sore all day are you?"

"Nah." He waved a hand to show that he was dismissing that idea "I've got this." He said and pulled out the small vial in his pocket. "If I take this I'll be healed in ten hours. I would have taken it yesterday but if I did that then I would have been asleep for ten hours and not been able to do anything."

"Can I see that?" Reina asked, holding out a small paw for the bottle. When he handed it to her she studied it before nodding and handing it back to him.

"You'll need to eat something before taking that." she said and Naruto nodded.

"How long have I been asleep for?" he asked as he examined the room he was in.

It was spacious for something that was supposed to be in a tree.

Reina left the room and when she returned she was holding a small plate with different fruits on it along with a couple of fish, some sort of fruity spread and a loaf of bread that was still warm and smelled really fresh.

"About twelve hours." She replied.

His eyes widened, "That long?!" then he winced again.

"Don't shout, it's still dark out and they're many creatures living around here that aren't nocturnal." She said as she placed the tray on his lap.

"Hehe. Sorry." He said with a sheepish smile, his hand coming up to rub the back of his neck as it often did when he was nervous. "Thank you for the food." He said before he inhaled the food. Once he was done he placed a drop of the fluid on his tongue and soon felt a burning sensation in his body. Soon after, he passed out sweating profusely.

Reina walked up to him and adjusted his covers and pillows before leaving his room to return to her own sleep. She was glad he was alright and seemed just as energetic as he had been the previous day.

* * *

When Naruto next awoke he felt better than he had when he first woke up. He moved his body from side to side and was pleased when his exercise was not disturbed by pain.

"Yes!" he cheered as he jumped from the bed, only to slip and go tumbling to the floor in a flurry of limbs and blankets.

"Ow," he muttered under his breath.

There was a snicker coming from somewhere in the room and he turned to see Reina standing there with a plate of cakes in her hand and a smile on her face.

"It's not funny." He said with a pout.

"I was watching it happen and you were involved in it. The viewpoints make all the difference."

Naruto got up from the floor exuberantly, his pouting completely forgotten. He grabbed a couple of cakes from off the tray and stuffed them in his mouth. A warm, gooey substance flowed into his mouth and he gave a sound of contentment. "These are really good." He complimented before grabbing two more and eating them in one bite.

"Of course," Reina preened under the praise.

"Where's Serin and Nerra?" he asked as he finished off his fifth cake.

"Oh, yeah!" she said pounding a fist over her palm. "I don't know about Nerra but Serin's helping with the festival preparations. They told me to tell you that they would meet you in the Green Cone Café once you're up and moving. But no one was expecting you to be up so early or so soon. The café won't even be open yet. I thought you said you wouldn't be up for ten hours." She said.

"It wasn't ten hours?"

"More like four." She said. "You sure that you're fine?"

"Yeah, yeah," he said in a light tone "I feel fine, no way I'm going to be laying around for an extra six hours when I feel just fine now. I don't have the time for that." He said.

"You're right." She agreed with him "Lazing about when you can be doing something useful and fun is no way to spend your youth."

"While I do like your enthusiasm, I've got to say that that's no way for a nurse to be speaking."

"Loki!" they both turned around in surprise and Naruto rushed to go hug the chipmunk.

"It's good to see you up and about boy. You got some horrible bruises on you when you returned early this morning I tell you. But I see you accomplished your goal, that's good as it is. Woulda been a waste if you had gone and gotten yourself all busted up without achieving your goal. I gotta imagine that you wouldn't have been too enthusiastic to go back there."

"What are you talking about?" Naruto asked him. He had every intention of going back. So he told them that.

"Why?" Loki asked surprised. "I admire your energy and all that but let me tell you now and you better listen well: wasting energy for no good reason is not the way to go."

"I won't be wasting energy! I've got to get my key." Naruto said with gusto and a frown "If I don't then I won't be able to rub it in Naevar's face that I was able to become a bookkeeper and then that stupid wolf is going to be laughing at me. Tch. Stupid wolf." Naruto finished with a pout. Naruto Uzumaki did not like to be looked down upon by anyone. Whenever people saw him or looked at him they were either ignoring his existence or mocking him for being 'weak'. He disliked it and why shouldn't he? Any spirited young boy with the maturity of a child to match disliked it. There may have been some exceptions to that but those were few and far between so they didn't count. He was going to prove them all wrong, one by one, slowly working his way to the top until he got to the spot of hokage and then they were forced to say that they were wrong to dismiss him all the time.

"What are you talking about? You already got it didn't you?"

"No. I couldn't get it."

"Ah, I see." Loki said as understanding dawned on his small cute face. "I see," he repeated "No, no boy, you got your keys. But maybe it'll be best to go talk to your friends about it. That Serin lad and the girl Nerra- they'll get you straight."

Naruto tilted his head to one side in confusion at this

'_I got the key? When?'_

"Where are they?" he asked Loki.

"The lad's going to be just down below and I've got no idea where the red head's got to. Lazy as they come, that one is. But Serin, ah, now that one's got the chipmunk spirit. Lots of energy he has."

Loki said as he led Naruto out of Reina's tree dwelling.

"Wait up!" she called. "You need a nice bath and a good healthy breakfast. Cakes don't count." She said as she saw Naruto ready to oppose her.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." She said "Whether you're fighting or dancing you're going to need your energy or else you'll be all droopy and lifeless and unable to do anything fun. You'll have to sit down all through the party or wait for someone to come beat up that monster for you. Or worse yet you won't have enough energy to get away from whatever annoying geezer or old hag that's bothering you! You don't want that to happen do you?!" she asked Naruto getting in his face as she finished her rant.

Naruto shook his head frantically and she nodded.

"Good then you'll get a nice energizing bath then come out and have as much breakfast as you can stuff into yourself."

Naruto nodded again. And she led him towards the bath.

Loki stood there with his eyes twitching. He had not missed her statement on annoying geezers. That girl really worked his last nerve.

An hour and a half later all three of them were moving towards Serin's location. Naruto had changed his clothes. He was now wearing a red, sleeveless shirt made of an a really light and cool material; a pair of black baggy pants with red streaks down each side; a pair of extremely comfortable wooden sandals; and a red bandanna with black polka dots over his hair.

They found Serin and Nerra sitting at a table in the Green Cone Café having breakfast.

"Naruto!" Serin called happily as he got up to give the young blond a hug "What're you doing here? We thought you would be out of it for another six hours. Well it's good to see you're healthy but are you sure you don't need more rest?" he asked checking over the blond carefully.

"I'm fine, thanks." Naruto said.

"Then have a seat. You two will join us right?"

"No." Reina shook her head. "I've got a date with a friend." She said. "I'll see you later Naruto. We should meet back at my place for lunch." she said. She gave a wave and left.

"I promised to help with some of the construction down on a lower path." Loki admitted. "Then I'll be going now." He turned to leave when he stopped and faced them again. "You guys need to explain to him why there's no need for him to go worrying about that castle." With that he left as well.

"Did you get taller?" Serin asked studying Naruto curiously.

The boy shrugged his shoulders. He doubted it but he hoped he had. Being called 'shorty' really grated on his nerves.

"Ah well. So would you like something to eat?" Serin asked.

"Nah. Reina already gave me breakfast."

"Breakfast or not there's always space for a snack." Serin said but Naruto shook his head again. Reina had stuffed him full of food like you would teddy bear with stuffing.

"Okay. Your call." After that there was silence while Nerra and Serin finished up their breakfasts and Naruto watched the inhabitants of the tree scramble back and forth.

'_So they're people on this tree as well.'_ He thought as he saw a woman walk past him with a basket of something covered by a blue checker cloth.

His attention was brought back to the table he sat at when he felt something heavy make contact with the table. He looked to see what it was and saw that Serin had placed his axe on his table, followed by his shield. Nerra followed his lead. She held out her hand and when her weapon materialised in her hand she placed it on the table.

Naruto was curious as he looked at the weapons. Nerra's staff no longer had the two S-shaped blades but the sharp blade that looked like an arrow head was still present. Speaking of which, he realised that he had never really studied Serin's weapons before.

The shield was composed of a slightly thick, round metal plate with a significant diameter and a smallish hole in the middle of the shield and two straps at two ends of the shield where Naruto supposed his hand would go; On top of the plate were two other layers that looked to Naruto like a fuma shuriken set on top of another slightly bigger fuma shuriken in a way that looked like a shuriken with eight blades instead of four- both had four curved blades that peeked over the edge of the metal plate. On the front of the shield, over the hole in the metal plate was a slightly transparent black stone that curved outwards and on the edge of the round layer of the shield, where ever could be seen, were small black stones of the same type. The shield itself was silver and the shuriken were black.

The head and, by extension, the blade of the axe was really curved with one of those black stones that adorned the shield sitting in the head. The poll of the axe was separated from the rest of the head by the body of the staff and was shaped like the spade symbol on a card deck. It had a relatively short handle, especially since the staff was his reference, and one third of the body, in between the other two, was made of that black stone- it was slightly transparent so Naruto could tell that it was hollow or at least seemed so. The body of the axe was a nice silver colour and the blade was black. The knob of the axe was also made out of that black stone and hollow, and attached to it was a string.

"These are your keys." Serin said as he looked straight at Naruto.

Naruto looked at him confused and waited for an explanation. These looked nothing like keys but he had seen stranger things since he came to this library.

When he saw that Naruto was not going to say anything he continued.

"They might not look much like keys now but they are."

Naruto nodded for him to continue.

"The reason why they are called keys is that they can open a pathway to the infinity library at any time or place with a few exceptions of course."

"That explains it," Naruto said. He had to wonder how they did that though but he had played enough video games and had many ideas of how this was going to work.

"True, but that's not all you need to know. You also need to understand that there are five classes of keys: the water class; the earth class; the air class; the fire class; and the spirit class. The class a key is in is determined by the kind of guardian spirit it possesses. A water class key has a guardian spirit attuned with waster; a fire class key has a spirit attuned with fire; an earth class key had a spirit attuned with the earth; an air class key has a spirit attuned with air; and a spirit type key… well that's actually an explanation for a different time."

Naruto nodded. He had a vague idea about where this was heading but he was going to continue listening anyway.

"These guardian spirits are also the reason not anyone can become a bookkeeper. If the guardian spirit of a key doesn't accept you then you cannot use the key and without a key you cannot form a bookkeepers contract."

Naruto took a bit to process this information before he asked hesitantly, "Then you and Nerra are Guardian spirits?" he asked.

"Yes." Serin answered him.

As crazy as it might sound to some people it made sense to Naruto who had played several video games both at the arcade in Konoha and on the few hand held game consoles he had owned. To find out that a weapon had a guardian spirit made perfect sense to him.

"Then you're an air class spirit right?" he asked Serin. He had seen Serin use his weapon before so he could tell.

"Yup. Not that hard to guess huh?" Serin grinned.

"And Nerra is fire right?"

The girl gave a single not of her head.

"It suits you." He told her and she smirked. Then he turned back to Serin. "Now I've got a key or keys," he said glancing at Nerra. "that means that I'm a bookkeeper right?"

"Not quite. You may have gotten your keys but to become an official bookkeeper you have to make a contract with your key and that process is something that the key keeper performs for you. It's a process that gives you two things. The first thing is the reason behind the title of 'bookkeeper'- the 'infinity book'. And the second is the ability to see 'words'. These two things are actually the reason why many people choose to become bookkeepers and the reason why you need a key to become one."

* * *

Far off in another part of the library, a wolf made of shadows with piercing red eyes gave a report on Naruto's wellbeing to a white wolf with blue markings on its forehead.

"So the child is alright?" Naevar asked the shadow who gave a single nod seeing as it could not speak.

'_He was injured but I doubt his injuries will take his life.' _The shadow said in Naevar's head in a voice that was low and floated away like mist once it had conveyed its words.

"Good job." Naevar said and with another nod the 3-D shadow wolf turned back into a 2-D shadow without any form, and disappeared.

Naevar stood there lost in his own thoughts before he began running and disappeared into the bookshelves. The child was safe- Naevar's task was complete.


	5. Step 3: Words and Codes

**AN:** In chapter one I said that the clock Naruto received from Crell was a wall clock, I meant grandfather clock :)

**AN1: **Hello, this chapter is kind of late but I'm done finally: been typing this slowly but surely. Thank you to all those who have supported the story thus far, your support is much appreciated. This is the last chapter in the 'INTRO' arc before I move to the next arc- do you think it is anti- climactic? Feel free to ask any questions if you don't understand something or if you think something is wrong.

**AN2: **Oheň means blaze or fire in Czecz just so you know. When you think of a doughnut (the ones with the holes in the centre) you know that they are made of two circles- one smaller and one bigger right? Now imagine a person standing in the centre hole of a giant doughnut- nice image isn't it :) When I start talking about rings later in the chapter just remember this image.

**AN3:** The use of technology in Konoha is rather questionable and, as a kind reviewer pointed out, clashes with the world in which Naruto seems to be set and makes things less believable (maybe it wasn't phrased that way exactly but I'm sleepy and don't feel like going back to check facts.) I'm not going to bring technology into the picture much- without a specific purpose.

And now, onto the chapter.

* * *

"_Not quite. You may have gotten your keys but to become an official bookkeeper you have to make a contract with your key and that process is something that the key keeper performs for you. It's a process that gives you two things. The first thing is the reason behind the title of 'bookkeeper'- the 'infinity book'. And the second is the ability to see 'words'. These two things are actually the reason why many people choose to become bookkeepers and the reason why you need a key to become one."_

Naruto thought about what Serin had told him as he followed Loki to Elara's position.

"'_Words' are the codes that make up everything. To be able to understand the 'words' that made up anything was to have an understanding of that thing."- _Is what Serin had told him.

"_Words?" Naruto had confusedly asked Serin "Really?"_

"_The world is like a book- everything in it has a story." The man said by way of explanation as he waved the waitress closer and ordered three large extra sweet fruity drinks for the three that sat chatting. "If you read their stories and understand the who, the what, the why, the when and the how of their existence you would understand what makes them tick; you would know how to mess with it; how to better it; how to destroy it... That is the ability of a bookkeeper- to be able to see the words that make up a substance, to be able to decipher its codes and to be able to alter those codes. Knowledge is power…" _

_The small blond paused for a second when he heard those words. Those were the exact words that Crell had told him._

"_That's the unofficial motto of bookkeepers." Serin said, answering Naruto's unasked question._

_The young boy sat in silence for the next few minutes. He did not say anything but both Serin and Nerra let him be._

'_Knowledge is power' twice that statement had been said to him. No, that was not true. The old man in the funny hat had also said it to him before when he was complaining about all the reading they expected him to do in the ninja academy- that much he remembered. _

_Seconds ticked away as his mind fully processed what he had been told. He did not have any trouble understanding but it was one of those things that needed careful consideration to be fully comprehended._

"_Think it through." Serin had said, slowly getting up from where he sat. "If you have any more questions then don't hesitate to ask me about it." He reached out a hand that was free of his oversized metal gloves and ruffled the blonde's hair before setting off to continue helping with the preparations for the festival._

_Naruto looked after him without really seeing where he was going. Directly in front of him Nerra watched as the small boy got tangled in his own thoughts. Sharp gold eyes watched for his reaction to what he had been told but saw nothing. A face that showed absolutely no reaction, she thought, meant that he had not fully comprehended what he had been told._

Naruto was not stupid, contrary to what many people believed. He may not be the smartest kid on the block but he was not stupid. He was overactive and enthusiastic with a lot of energy, his sense of time was also off- one minute to a normal person, was at least half an hour to him- and he was above all practical- if it in no way connected to his goal then he didn't need it, useless is useless no matter how much it was prettied up: but he was not stupid, not by a long shot. However, he was eight so some things were harder for him to understand than others. 'Words' and 'Codes' were part of these.

"We're here!" Loki called to him from the front effectively breaking him out of his thinking process.

He gave a bright smile at the trunk that was Elara and greeted her with enthusiasm. When he had first come here he had not looked closely at the trees but now as he sat down in front of the huge tree that was his friend he realised that he could never mistake another tree for Elara or Elara for another tree. The trees here all had personality- they were each individual beings in their own right- he may not have talked to any tree save Elara but he could tell- just like he could tell that person A was not person B and vice versa.

It was with this knowledge in mind that he began what was to be his last conversation with her for some time to come. Two weeks had passed since his arrival to the 'world in the trees' as he had named it and now it was time for him to say his last farewells to his new friends and acquaintances. At the moment Serin and Nerra sat at the café where they had that discussion on what it meant to be a bookkeeper as they waited for him to have a private word with those he had come to know and like.

Finally the last few minutes he had with her were over and he got up and wrapped his arms as far around her trunk as they could go:

"I'll miss you." He said in a quiet wobbly voice and her vines came up to give him a hug.

There was a tap on his shoulder and he looked back to see one of Elara's vines offering him a leaf with an untidy and undecipherable scribble on it along with a small sack tied at the top.

"What's this?" he asked as he peered at the leaf in his hands with curiosity. In the small sack was something he could recognise just by touch.

"It's a location code." Loki told him. "Once you make a bookkeepers contract then you can come visit this place again."

"Really?!" bright eyes looked between Loki and Elara with hope and a little scepticism "I thought only Rigel could let someone in here."

"No, only Rigel can let someone know the location of the castle." Loki corrected him. "That thing changes its location all the time, it just so happened to be here this time. In fact, when Senshi came back from his flight just the other night he said the whole thing was already gone."

"So I can really come back here?" Naruto asked again. Excitement had crept into his voice and had made it a little louder than strictly necessary, his blue eyes were twinkling with happiness and his face was about to be split in two by his smile. "Alright!" he cheered, giving a little jump while pumping one fist in the air "I'll definitely come back to visit. Definitely!" he said.

With that he turned around and began to run back the way he had come, completely forgetting about his small guide.

"Hehe." Loki chuckled. "Gotta love that little one's enthusiasm don't ya?" he said.

…

"Yeah, I know you'll miss him. But he'll come visit again in a short time." He replied to the words which he could hear. "He's definitely got the bookkeepers spirit, that one. No doubt he'll be having a lot more of his tales to tell you when he comes back here. Kids like that always got a bunch to say."

…

He gave a little smile when he heard the answer she spoke to him trail off a little. "You and your worrying- I'll never get it. He's going to be looked after by the oheň there's-"

…

"Yeah, yeah, I know they're a little rough but don't worry about it. It may be hard on him at first but if it's him then he'll make it. Stop your mother Henning you annoying old woman."

A vine slapped him on the back of his head to tell him exactly what Elara thought of his words. A moment later he found himself wrapped in a tree equivalent of a human hug.

Time slowed a little for the two. For two who had lived so long and had yet longer to live, a year could barely be considered long and to them it would only feel like a day, but still it had been quite some time since Loki had had to leave- not long enough in Elara's memory.

"I'll miss you too lass." He replied to her quiet sentiment with a warm smile.

…

"Well then take care and don't worry about this old chipmunk. You of all trees ought to know that your old granddad got plenty of fight left in him. Ain't nothing gonna to keep me down- least of all a short journey," He said as the moment passed and he too bounded in the direction the energetic blond had gone only moments earlier.

…

Elara watched as he disappeared. It had only been seconds since he left and yet she already felt lonely. A day may be short but when it was spent without your favourite companion then it seemed to drag on.

She felt her leaves moving in response to the gentle caress of the wind and she let her mind wonder out to the world around her. The feel of insects and small animals against her branches calmed her down and made her feel at peace. She could feel the world around her: from the slight shake of a tree branch as a small bird prepared to take to the sky, to the scuttling of the small animals in her branches and even the tiniest vibrations on the ground and the movement of the worms far below the soil. All around her the world was moving like it was supposed to. All around her the world was peaceful. All around her… everything was alright.

* * *

"_Finally!" _Naruto thought with no small amount of relief as he saw the literal light at the end of the tunnel that suggested that they would emerge from the underground pathways soon.

It had been a long and tiring task as they had trekked through the spacious underground tunnels that had been lit only enough that they could see their own feet and nothing more. Several times Naruto had tripped on tree roots, rocks, and many small animals, and fallen down face first until Nerra finally decided that he would have enough sense to put his pride aside and take her hand. Things had gone much better from then on as she had led him through the tunnels, her enhanced sight making up for the lack of adequate lighting. From time to time he still tripped and stumbled but he did not fall face first again.

Still, despite this experience he was curious enough that he resolved to return another time to follow and explore the third part of 'saltus semitas' or the forest of paths. He had already seen semitam in arboribus- the pathway in the trees- and he was not really sure if he wanted to see semitam humi- the pathway on the ground- but he was curious about sub terra semitas- the underground paths. Even though it was a nuisance, there was a sort of mysteriousness to them that ignited his adventurous spirit and beckoned him.

But he was still not ready to face them yet. No, that was a journey for another time. Right now he just wished to get out of this place; next time he came back he was bringing a light source with him.

As they emerged Naruto immediately felt like the place was familiar. He looked around at where they were until he finally discovered the huge old tree- bigger even than all of the trees Naruto had seen in the forest so far- covered with slightly luminescent moss that housed the door through which he had entered this place. The old tree, Naruto noted, stood tall and majestic and had about it a sense of wisdom, pride, nobleness and kind understanding. Even more so than other trees with different personalities, it stood out.

"That's where I came in from." Naruto said pointing at the large tree.

"It's rude to point." Loki admonished him. "Old, tall and leafy here has always been the one to guard the doorway when it appeared in this forest."

"That's also a rude way of talking isn't it Loki?" a booming voice said from the tree, merriment and good humour were present in the aged voice.

"The tree just talked." Naruto said to no one in particular.

"Ah, ya old geezer, how've you been?" Loki asked the tree in a voice that showed he was happy to be talking to the old tree.

"Hahaha!" the booming laughter seemed to echo through the clearing: loud, clear and comforting. The volume of the laughter did not cause the bird to take flight from their perches. "As I have always been young one. This old tree knows how to enjoy peaceful days when they come by."

"That you do." Loki said.

"And who are the children?" the tree asked and Naruto got the distinct impression that one of its branches had moved down in a motion that made it seem like it wanted to take a closer look at them.

"Ah. Now where are my manners?" Loki began

"You never got any."

"Haha!" Loki said in an obviously mocking tone "I'll have you know that I'm as courteous as courteous can be."

"And just as rude as when you were a wee little chipmunk full energy and life."

"I've still got the energy thank you. And seeing as I'm not about to kick the bucket soon you can say I still got plenty of life left in me."

"Denial is always the first stage." The old tree said in a voice that conveyed both his amusement and understanding in a way meant to tease Loki.

"You old geezer." Loki said again, shaking his head.

"Don't forget that you're a geezer too now Loki."

"Ha." Loki gave a long suffering sigh. "You and Elara both: what a troublesome pair. And now that youngling Reina seems determined to make me wrinkle even more."

"Poor you." The old tree soothed.

"Don't be giving me that false sympathy you old annoyance. I'll have you know-"

His ranting was cut in half by a loud sound of a clearing throat, "More than that Loki were not you about to give an introduction?" The tree asked.

"Ah yes!" Loki said, springing back from his world of rants to reality. "Quintus, this is Naruto, Nerra and Serin. Kid went and got himself keys to form a bookkeeper's contract. And this, kids, is Quintus- one of the oldest trees in this here forest."

"Pleasure to meet you." Serin greeted with a smile.

"Hello." Naruto said shyly as the tree seemed to turn all its attention on them.

"Hm?" Quintus said examining them. "Ah! I remember the boy with the hair of sunshine yellow and eyes of a clear blue sky. You passed by here quite some time ago didn't you? Well, in quite a short time you've grown quite a lot haven't you- much taller than when I last saw you. You used to be so small. Hahaha," he gave a booming laugh "well you're still small- humans always were small creatures weren't they?"

"No." Loki deadpanned. "You trees are just big."

"That we are. Hahaha." He laughed again. "But I see someone's been feeding the boy. That's good, that's good. You were quite the scrawny one when you came here. Good to see that you've added some up to your person and some meat to your bones eh?"

"Elara and Reina form quite the tag team when it comes to feeding him. And don't I agree with them every bit. Some budding berries combined with three square meals, and then some, of Reina's cooking and see how healthy he's looking."

"Hm, I see, I see." The old three agreed and if it had a head Naruto thought it would be slowly nodding. "A favourite of Elara and Reina is he? Hm. Well then, quite the pity that you're leaving now young one- would have liked you to stay so that we can have a nice chat. What a pity, it really is."

"Don't go moping Quintus. Lad's got the code from Elara. You can be sure he'll be returning sometime then you can have your chat." Loki said.

"Is that so?" Quintus asked.

And Naruto, feeling that was his cue, nodded his head vigorously, yellow spiky hair bouncing with the motion. "Yeah! I'm definitely going to come back here to see my friends and explore."

"Hahaha." The tree laughed good naturedly at the boy's enthusiasm. "Good to hear, good to hear. And when you come back don't forget to come visit this old tree. I've been here longer than most and know this place well. I'll be able to give you advice on how to survive in this place and tell you some of the best secret hideouts this forest has to offer."

"Really? Thank you." Naruto said gratefully. His huge smile was back on his face at the old tree's kindness and seeing that Quintus laughed again.

"I have a feeling we'll get along fine." The tree said.

"Um…" Naruto began and everyone turned to look at him. "How come you can talk and Elara can't?" Naruto asked.

" 'cause I'm old." The tree answered and broke out into more booming laughter. "No, no. It's no joke," it said with a smile in its voice "I am really, really old, compared to me Elara is but a babe. Been living so long: so, so long. At some time I must have learnt to speak. Or perhaps a bookkeeper may have altered my code to let me speak. Hm? If that were so then he must have quite the ability to give a tree an outer voice. Quite the ability indeed. I can't quite remember- memory becomes fuzzy with time you see boy, you tend to remember the outlines and lose the details- like an old painting."

Naruto nodded in understanding and the old tree continued:

"But you'll find that the oldest trees in this place can talk. Mmhm. Just like myself. In fact they may be able to tell you why they can talk though I can't. Mmhm. I know, when you come back to visit I'll tell you where you can find some of those old geezers." This seemed like a joke to him and he laughed happily again.

This time Naruto smiled along with him. The tree had a rather warm and friendly presence that put the boy at ease and brought out his own cheerful personality easily.

"And rather bitter geezers some of them are, no sense of humour worth speaking of. They'll argue heaven and earth that they're not geezers while providing a geezers proof. Ah, well then," Quintus said, "I guess you better be on your way. Better be on your way indeed. Been here quite a long time haven't you?"

Naruto nodded again.

"Good bye Quintus-san. I promise I'll come visit some time."

"Yes, yes. It was nice meeting you. Quite the pleasure indeed. And I'll talk to you two as well hm?" He said to Serin and Nerra.

"Of course." Serin answered but Nerra gave only a reserved nod of the head.

"Then off you go." the tree said.

"See ya geezer." Loki said as he gave a farewell wave to the old tree.

With that they all passed through the arch in the tree's trunk. The light from the forest filtered into the space so that they could see the wooden door set into the base of the tree.

Serin held onto the brass door and closed his eyes in concentration. In a few seconds the symbols around the door knob turned gold and began to glow.

"There we go," Serin said in a pleased tone of voice before turning the brass knob and opening the door to reveal a white space. "Nerra you go first, then Naruto, then Loki. I'll come last."

Nerra gave her typical reply, the one she normally gave when she bothered answering at all. "Hm."

She walked into the white space and seemed to fade a little before suddenly disappearing.

"Okay, it's your turn next Naruto." Serin nudged when he saw that the boy seemed to have no intention of moving "Keeping this door open actually takes energy you know." Naruto seemed to realize he had been gawking when they were all waiting for him and rushed through the open door.

"You might want to brace yourself and be ca-" Serin was saying when the boy vanished "reful…" the man finished lamely. "Well I'm sure he'll be alright." He said with a shrug.

"That he will," Loki said as he also stepped through the door.

Soon he had vanished as well and Serin too entered through the door.

The wooden door stayed open long enough only that any passer-by or observing party could see Serin vanish, and then it shut itself with a finality and purpose that would have surprised some.

"Seems like they're gone." Quintus remarked out loud. "Hope they arrive safely, especially the youngest one, hope he's fine."

He was. Well sort of.

* * *

It was just another market day in Konoha. The pleasant murmur that is often heard when there are too many voices speaking all at once rose to the air in a loud but pleasant noise as excited men, women, traders and even animals bustled around on their business. Laughter rang through the streets when acquaintances happened to pass by each other and stopped for a chat; the loud voice of local merchants advertising their wares was ever present; and the shouted whispers of women as they hassled foreign merchants into telling them of the latest gossip, scandals and fashions outside their home village- were all sounds you could hear as you stepped into the lively Konoha market. It truly was a place many would want to be. To all and sundry everything was just as it should be.

Still, to the ever observant watcher a disturbance could be perceived. Perhaps it was in the blurry forms of ninjas as they fled from rooftop to rooftop or the way they sent out quick and urgent looks to either sides of them when they stopped for a short break on the rooftops before speeding out again. One might rightly argue that this was a ninja village and on days when there were so many foreign visitors these dwellers of the shadows needed to be more paranoid than ever. Yes that would be quite right but the reason the observant watcher noticed this disturbance was because of the lack of paranoia that the seemingly frantic ninjas possessed. You see the ninjas were not scanning the crowd looking for anything at all but instead were searching for **something** in particular. As they stopped on the rooftops their eyes darted through the members of the crowd looking for a specific target and when it was not sighted they quickly moved on. As it was, their target happened to be one Uzumaki Naruto- the jinchuuriki of the nine tailed beast. Said beast was known to be the strongest of the nine demons that were known to the ninja world and the child into whom it had been sealed… was nowhere to be found. Quite the dilemma isn't it?

The young Uzumaki who was often recognised for his: loud demeanour; gusty proclamations that he was a future hokage; and pranks that often left many glowering in public and just as many snickering in private: had been missing for two weeks- to the knowledge of the ninja population- and five weeks- to one Umino Iruka.

Umino Iruka is a man that would be described by the general public as being rather sensible, kind, pleasant and patient. It is these qualities that make him perfectly suited to the job he has undertaken- a teacher of rowdy and troublesome children. It was his job to instil in the next generation of Konoha's ninjas the qualities upon which Konoha prided itself: kindness, loyalty, honour, regard for ones comrade and teamwork: the will of fire. As a teacher and someone who was himself greatly imbibed with these principles he took joy in his job. To him each student was special and treasured and though he would not, on the principles of being a good teacher, admit it, there happened to be one student whom he favoured among the rest. One Naruto Uzumaki- the very same energetic jinchuuriki of the nine tailed beast that seemed to have disappeared without a trace.

'_I should have noticed! I should have noticed! I should have noticed!'_ the brown haired chuunin berated himself as he sat on a stool in the boy's favourite- former favourite he reminded himself- restaurant and the last place he had been seen. He had come here with the kid a couple of times before and knew just how much the loud menace loved the place. A part of him greatly hoped that any second the energetic form of the blond would walk through the flaps of Ichiraku's ramen stall and take a sit next to him. That was why he had unconsciously sat, for the first fifteen minutes of his arrival, with his body positioned on the stool so that half of it faced the entrance to the ramen stand and the other half faced the bar. As the time had worn on he had very reluctantly turned to fully face his food, sitting there with unseeing eyes. The chopsticks dangled idly from his hands and inadvertently his mind strayed to the happier times they had spent together. _'If he really is gone.' _His mind trailed off _'He's not gone!' _he firmly rebuked himself _'He's just off planning some prank masterpiece and any day now he's going to pop up and prank the daylights out of any and everyone!'_ if only he believed that.

The brown haired man gave a heavy sigh and turned the contents of his bowl using a chopstick. The noodles and broth swirled around in a hypnotic fashion and he stopped doing this when a Naruto fishcake caught his eyes. A small smile graced his face:

"_Naruto like that fishcake you're eating huh?"_

"_Yup and also for a maelstrom!" the young blond sitting next to Iruka had declared with a face full of noodles. A noodle strand dropped to his shirt as he attempted to swallow his meal whole and Iruka's hand had strayed close to his glass of water just in case the boy began to choke. It was almost impossible for any responsible and even irresponsible person to not take that into consideration giving the rate and manner in which the boy consumed the food._

_Several small splashes of broth flew about as Naruto slurped in the last few strands of noodles before turning to face Iruka. "That just proves that I'm awesome because ramen and all its topping are awesome and maelstroms are awesome too… I checked a dictionary." He added the last bit as an afterthought._

_With that the large bowl containing nothing but ramen broth was brought to the lips of the youngster and Iruka had to restrain himself from grabbing a tissue and cleaning up the boy when he saw a line of yellow liquid spill from the blow and trickle down the white shirt of his younger companion._

'_That's going to leave a mark.' He had thought but left it alone._

That had been the first time he had offered to take Naruto to Ichiraku's he remembered with no small amount of nostalgia. It had been awkward for Iruka who had unfairly hated the small blond for the last eight years of his life. Seeing the small boy slurping down the salty treat like there was no tomorrow and happily talking to him had increased his guilt and awkwardness by no small amount. It was in the midst of these unpleasant feelings that Iruka had tried to tease the small boy about his name and Naruto had given that reply. Iruka chuckled lightly.

"Haa~" he sighed. "Looks like I'm not really in the mood for ramen." He got up from the seat, plopped down the pay for his meal on the counter and walked into the sea of people where he soon blended in with the crowd.

Without seeing where he was going he allowed his feet to guide him to where his mind wanted him to be and finally he found himself standing in front of the apartment block that housed Naruto's room. The last time Iruka had been here was the day he had visited Ichiraku's after school and had found out that Naruto had not been there for the three weeks he had missed school. He had been greatly unsettled as he had rushed to the school records to check out the boy's residence and then had afterwards rushed to his home. What he had seen there had been worse than Iruka had thought it would be- Naruto was neither sick nor injured nor playing hooky from school, if he had been Iruka would have been a little relieved. If he had seen any sigh of the blond at all his worries would have been put to rest. But no, there was no sign of Naruto Uzumaki or where he had gone- none at all.

He had knocked- several times in fact- and when there had been no answer he had tried the door. The handle gave easily under his weight and revealed to him a room that had been just as untidy as he would have supposed it to be for a rowdy little boy of Naruto's age living alone. Strewn across the floor were clothes, scrolls, plates and mangas. Naruto's small bag back lay abandoned in the mess and when Iruka checked its contents he could see that it had not been touched since the students had received their latest test script- the last day he had seen Naruto. The sink was filled with empty, unwashed ramen bowls and the milk would probably cause anyone who drank it to puke instantly and could result in death from food poisoning. All in all it did not look like there had been anyone in the house for several days.

To some people it could be rationalised that judging by Naruto's known character traits, a house that looked like it could have been unused for several weeks was just what they would expect his home to look like. To Iruka this line of thought was at the fore front of his mind as he made his way to the Hokage's office to inform him of the apparent disappearance of the resident jinchuuriki. Of course Naruto might be alright but considering who he was they could never be too careful. The Hokage had not shown any sign of alarm when Iruka had reported Naruto's disappearance to him. The experienced old man had shown little emotion save for the slight furrowing of his brows that demonstrated concentration rather than worry. No, the real alarm had come when the old man, using his crystal ball device, had not been able to find the small, gold haired, cerulean eyed, whiskered face, fox grin wearing, loud talking, confident seeming, happy acting, energetic feeling, impatient being, ramen loving boy. At that moment the Hokage had sent out patrols to search for the boy in every corner in and around Konoha and after that up till the Fire country's border.

So far that had been going on for two weeks without pause.

Iruka trudged up the stairs to the top floor and once again turned down the handle and pushed open the door, wishing that the golden haired boy might be spotted and yet knowing he would not be. He opened the door and no blond bomb assaulted him. Everything was the same as he had left it two weeks ago, from the untidy dishes and clothes to the dusty and big grandfather clock and the absence of the ramen loving blond. Iruka gave a sigh that indicated his disappointment- one could dream couldn't they?

His eyes swept over the room as they had done on his first visit. But this time he was looking for clues as to where exactly the boy could have gone. As his sharp gaze scrutinized the room he found that nothing seemed out of place… save for the expensive antique looking grandfather clock that stood leaning against the wall, constantly ticking, ticking, ticking…

Iruka shook his head to clear it from the slight hypnosis that it seemed to have undergone and noticed that his mind was a little clearer than it had been a few minutes prior. With his mind less panicked and numb he immediately noticed that Naruto's room was eerily quiet.

'_Has it always been this quiet?' _he wondered.

The ticking of Naruto's grandfather clock seemed even louder and Iruka turned to examine it closely. It was a big clock that stretched almost all the way to the roof of the house but did not look awkward in the corner into which it was fit. It was made of a gleaming dark brown wood and the intricate square base and top were wider than the middle into which was fit a transparent glass door. Through the glass door Iruka could see a set of transparent gold coloured pendulums (like see through liquid gold) with a beautiful twisting line design inscribed into the centre of their round heads. The clock even tough rather far up was very visible- it was round with gold roman numerals and golden hands, and was set into a transparent square base with a moon dial visible just above- the moon was in the Waning Gibbous phase. At each corner of the transparent square base was another miniature clock whose uses Iruka could not decipher. At the top of the clock- one at each end and one in the centre- were what looked to be miniature models of clock towers with golden bells in them. The clock towers were made of flat, round, small, gold sheets supported by four small pillars as thin as pins, and from the centre of the gold sheet a tiny golden bell hung. The keys for winding the large clock was nowhere in sight. Intricate designs of flowers and vines sat at different points in the clock making it look classy without being gaudy- such an expensive looking piece of furniture seemed out of place in Naruto's modest apartment Iruka noted again after fully taking in the clock's design.

Was this clock the reason Naruto was gone? The clock could not have been cheap. Unless whoever made it was great at creating cheap imitations of quality goods then the clock must have cost a small fortune. The clock chose that moment to give out fourteen clear and loud rings indicating the time. In fact this clock seemed just like the sort of thing he had read about as a young boy: a young adventurous or maybe a gloomy boy who just so happened to spend the holiday in the traditional home of his grandparents comes across an old family heirloom and while tampering with it discover some kind of great secret- perhaps the secret love letters of some long dead folk which detailed their secret hideouts and meeting places; or a treasure map with promise of fame and glory, or some other exiting discovery- and goes off on a great adventure; or maybe he finds some old journal of some sort that makes him rethink his gloomy ways and gives him some life and excitement as he finds ways to be hard working and save the old clock which he became attached to after reading its story in the journal; or maybe it's a clock that can transport the boy to different times in the past or future where the boy can see how different people used to live and come to appreciate his own life better: Iruka could think of so many of them- the first and second ones seemed especially likely if Naruto was involved. Iruka shook his head to clear it of the pictures it conjured up showing Naruto holding a map and a small bag as he left unnoticed and unhindered out the walls of Konoha and into the wide world beyond. He gave a long sigh when the thought cleared from his head: it really was the type of thing Naruto would do wasn't it?

He studied the clock again not completely counting out the possibility that Naruto's disappearance was tied to it. This was the ninja world and things happened. As it was there was no sign of a struggle to show the child had been dragged off (the place already looked ransacked) though he might find something if he looked carefully. The young blond could have been tricked and followed whoever it was willingly or be taken by surprise and knocked out, thus leaving no trace of a struggle- that was the route the Hokage was angling for. Since Iruka was needed in the village and could not just abandon his duties for one student he could not go with the search parties to look for his missing student. Therefore he was willing to take the one clue that many might think silly, childish and unimportant- Iruka was going to be investigating a clock.

* * *

It was dark.

Why was it so dark?

Wasn't it bright before?

The last thing he could remember was walking into the white passage beyond the door Serin had opened. It was so bright then.

Why isn't it bright now?

Why…?

"Naruto?"

Whose voice was that? It was so familiar.

He remembered seeing Rigel and being glad that he was soon to become a bookkeeper. He was closer to his goal of proving Naevar wrong. The goal he had set for himself when he had arrived here all that time ago.

"Naruto?"

Then what had happened. Something had yanked his body forward. It had hurt slightly like there was too much weight on his body and it was going to be split apart. Like part of him was being dragged forward and the other part was being dragged back. Was that what rubber bands felt like?

"Naruto!"

Gah! Why didn't the voice just go away? He was still tired, he didn't want to get up yet.

"Naruto!"

After feeling his body being dragged he had felt his head collide heavily with something and had been unable to resist the call of darkness as his eyes closed…

That's right! His eyes were closed that's why it was so dark. It was Serin's voice- that's why it was so familair.

"I have a plan." An unfamiliar female voice said.

"Ugh." He groaned turning his head to the side slightly as he prepared to open his eyes. His head ached slightly.

"Wait! I think he's up." Serin said.

"Too late." The female told him and a few seconds later Naruto felt a great amount of something cold and wet crash into his face.

He bolted up immediately as he gasped for breath. He coughed and spluttered as he beat his chest desperately to stop himself from choking. Serin was immediately at his side asking questions and patting his back- trying to make sure he was okay.

"Naruto, you're awake!" a voice cried out happily and Naruto turned to his side and saw Rigel standing there wearing a big smile. Naruto couldn't stop the small glower that came to his face at the boy's happy exclamation. Using such a method to wake him up when he was already awake was not funny: not in the least.

Rigel didn't seem to notice Naruto's glower as he went on talking:

"You'd been asleep for a day now and we were worried about you. Passing through a door is normally taxing if you're new to it and if you're not prepared for it; you also came out of the door really fast and hit your head pretty heavily against the banisters but even still you'd been passed out for way too long when the doctor had said there was nothing wrong with you." Rigel said by way of explanation.

"I was awake already," Naruto said through gritted teeth, thoroughly annoyed with the situation, "there was no need for the water."

"I had already gathered the water; I didn't feel like sending it all away." The same female voice form the darkness said in place of Rigel and Naruto turned. The owner of the voice was a pretty girl with a small oval face, glossy pink lips, ebony black hair curled lightly at the ends that reached to her shoulders and big eyes that were a nice shade of blue. She wore a short sleeved black Goth Lolita styled dress that reached her knees and was blue from her chest to her waist. She wore the dress along with a huge blue bow, the colour of her eyes, tied around her waist and positioned to the side; leggings the colour of her bow; a set of black combat boots; a blue headband to match her bow; and a pair of elegant blue gloves with ruffles at the edge. Her face held no remorse for her actions and seemed emotionless.

"My clothes are soaked." Naruto gritted out again.

The girl searched all around her before pulling out from a hidden pocket a handkerchief the same colour as her bow. "Hanky?" she said offering the cloth to Naruto, her face still without an emotion.

Naruto quietly took the small piece of cloth, resisting the urge to rub the soft fabric against his face. With a little bit of scepticism he unfolded the small cloth only to see that there wasn't much extra even when the whole of it was full displayed.

"You want me to use this to dry myself?" he asked looking from her to the fabric and back again.

Her response was to shrug her shoulders, "It's really absorbent."

"Hehehe." Another female voice giggled before Naruto found himself in a full hug, his head smashed against the chest of someone who was undoubtedly another female. "I can dry you off using my body heat instead if you'd prefer." The voice good naturedly offered. "I don't mind."

"No, Nova. He is not a teddy bear. No matter how much you wish he was." It was a male voice this time.

"Eh? But he's so cute!" the lady squealed again as she hugged Naruto even tighter than before.

"And soon to be passed out from oxygen deprivation if you don't let him go." The male voice replied calmly.

Slowly, Naruto felt the hand that were squishing him relinquish their grip and he was able to breathe again. Once he was free he looked up. The person that had been hugging him was a beautiful dark skinned girl with orange hair in a boy cut, she wore a red, sleeveless Chinese top that reached all the way to her ankles but was split all the way to her beginning of her thighs at the side; underneath that was a pair of short black shorts and black boots that stopped mid-thigh and seemed to be made of a material that gave more thoughts to fashion and comfort than anything else. Besides her clothes she also sported a pair of cat ears and a tail- all black- and black eyes. Her face was open and warm with a happy smile.

Standing beside her was the man Naruto assumed to be his saviour. He was a young man wearing a white with gold lining, long sleeveless shirt, along with a pair of long white trousers, black combat boots and black gloves with gold coloured stones sitting over his knuckles. He had short spiky white hair with two bangs framing his face and bluish, almost white, eyes. He gave off an aura of 'cool' but seemed friendly enough.

"The handkerchief that Nef'ly gave you can absorb a small pond of water and stay dry." The man said by way of an explanation- his voice immediately proving that he was the one that had saved Naruto from the hug given to him by Nova. "Also," the man continued to speak "Stay away from Nova." He said gesturing to the orange haired girl beside him (an indignant "Hey!" said in protestation by said girl was ignored) "While she's under the mind-set that you're a walking, talking teddy bear you're going to be under the danger of receiving her super hugs of doom and destruction," (another indignant "Hey!") "those thing have killed more teddy bears than I care to count."

"They weren't that many!" Nova protested. "It was only five!" the boy gave her a raised eyebrow. "Fine maybe six- Mr bubble wasn't my fault! His head was already coming off-"

"From your last hug." The boy said and without waiting for her to say anything continued in an uninterested manner "And don't forget Star Bright, or Dreamer, or Moon Lite, or Flair and Flora the twins-"

"Or Raven, or Rose, or Lily, or buttercup, or Pom, or Azalea-" 'Nef'ly' continued for him.

"Or Gem, Silver, Dia, Ruby, Saph-" Rigel added with a big smile

"Lyra-" the boy took up the chant again only to have Nova cut him off.

"Okay! Okay! I get it, there were many. B-but just look at him!" She whined out with stars in her eyes "He's so cute." She said as she tried to hug him again only to have Nerra stand between her and Naruto- the message in her eyes very clear: 'NO TOUCHING.'

"Fine!" Nova huffed and turned away sulking.

"Well Naruto now that you're awake let me introduce some people to you." Rigel said, taking control of the situation. "These four are the guardian spirits of my keys:" he said as he gestured to the four new comers in the room "You know Nova;" the orange haired girl in question greeted him with a smile that made her seem more mature than she had been acting a few seconds prior. "Zen;" The man gave a single nod of acknowledgement. "Nephelie;" The black haired girl said nothing but remained as she was before "And Wolf."

The last to be introduced had been keeping so quiet and blending into the background so well that Naruto did not notice him till he was pointed out by Rigel. He wore a fitting, light brown, high neck, jacket that had long sleeves and reached to his ankle. The jacket was open at the lower half of his body so that his legs were fully visible and his long black pants and black combat boots could be seen. He also wore black gloves, a black belt and his jacket was lined with black. He had black hair and black eyes and his posture suggested that he was someone with a stately upbringing. After he was called he gave only a rigid bow without saying a word.

"Nice to meet you guys." Naruto said as he finished drying off himself with the hanky and handed it back to Nephelie. "Thank you." She looked at the piece of cloth he was handing out to her and then back at him again.

"Here. Give it to me. I'll have it dry cleaned." Zen said and took the handkerchief from Naruto. "Don't take any offence she's like that with everyone." He said as he pocketed it.

Naruto shrugged, not really bothered by the whole thing. He knew girls were picky and after walking about in the forest and underground he doubted he was squeaky clean like he had been when he had departed from Reina's house earlier the previous day.

"So then what will it be? Will you sign the contract first or have some lunch first?" Rigel continued.

A low rumbling sound originating from the stomach of one eight year old boy provided the answer.

"Lunch it is then," Rigel said happily.

Naruto hoisted himself out of the rather high but super comfy bed he had been sleeping in. As he got down from the bed he realised that he had been in a rather luxurious room. The room was huge, painted a light cream and peach colour with some wine coloured fur lining and was well lighted thanks to the big windows on one side of the room that let in natural light and gave a very good view of the fluffy clouds floating about just outside. The bed Naruto had been lying on was a king sized, four poster bed that was generously supplied with pillows and covered with light blue and white bed spreads. As his bare feet touched the ground he looked down and saw that the floor was covered up by a soft, fluffy, white coloured carpet that made him want to just stand there and wiggle his small toes. Set by the window, against one wall was a large study table and comfy looking chair, against the other wall was a bookshelf filled with books and a wine coloured bean bag; at each side of the head of the bed were small drawers made of a dark brown wood; Some ways in front of the bed was a black and brown marble coffee table surrounded by a set of wine coloured couches; leaning against the wall some way from the table was a light brown wooden cabinet with black transparent glass doors that allowed Naruto to see the china that it held; and last was a dark brown wooden coat hanger positioned close by the door.

There were also several other doors in the room whose uses Naruto questioned only in his mind.

'_It would have been nice to stay in a room like this'_ the small boy thought as he followed the others out of the room and into the hallway.

"Ah, I almost forgot!" Rigel said as he went back into the room Naruto had been occupying and emerged with the sandals Naruto had been given by Reina. "Here you go." He said.

"Thanks." Naruto said and bent down to put them on. He really wouldn't have minded, he realised, walking around barefooted on the warm marble floor of the hallway.

"Now that I think about it, wouldn't you prefer a nice warm bath before eating?" Rigel asked with some concern.

The markedly louder grumbling that came from Naruto's stomach after that remark was enough to settle that affair- food first, everything else next.

Rigel's castle was impressively large, Naruto noted with awe, and was decorated in light colours with some bright ornaments, flowers, decorations and paintings creating a nice contrast and giving the place a cheerful feel. There were big windows, at short intervals, allowing the sunlight to stream through them and light up the place nicely. As they strode purposefully along the hallways Naruto could see the clouds that seemed to him more like paintings from a happy dream than reality. A gentle breeze played about in the hallway and once, in a beam of sunlight filtering through the windows, Naruto caught sight of a dancing dust particle and reached out his hand to catch it only to stumble and almost fall if not for Serin's hands that caught him and held him up.

"Thanks." Naruto said gratefully and the man matched his smile with one of his own.

The castle was quiet. Not in a way that gave him the chills or made him want to fidget in impatience but in a way that calmed even _his_ normally hyperactive mind. The image of children laughing and playing flitted across his mind and he wanted to laugh too even though no one had said anything funny. The peace that welled up in him was a peace that made him giddy and happy and tempted him to laughter and smiles. And though he did not give in and laugh, he had a huge cheerful smile plastered across his face that made Serin who was walking beside him and Nerra behind him smile as well.

The hallway they turned into last was a hallway that had no windows on the walls but instead had them on the roof. It was much smaller than the hallways they had been passing till now but not so small that it was uncomfortable. It also had more of a mature air about it and seemed more solemn than the others.

Finally they entered a huge room with a completely transparent ceiling that let them see the sky outside and a long dining table in the middle with several chairs around it. On the table was the most magnificent spread that Naruto had seen. Naruto's experience with foods was rather limited though and he could not recognise many of the dishes. He did recognise a rice dish though and those stringy green and orange things were definitely vegetables mashed in some weird sauce- it actually looked a little appetising so maybe he might try very little of it. There were also sandwiches and what looked to be sausages. And a ham- there was a whole ham on the table that was at least three sizes bigger than the ones he had seen in any Konoha butchery before. Then there were wings. Who cared if it was chicken or turkey wings? They were big and looked succulent and delicious was all that mattered. His mouth began to water in anticipation and in his mind he had decided that he wanted to try a little of everything even the icky vegetables.

"Shall we begin?" Rigel said once they were all settled at the table.

With a loud cry of "Itadakimasu!" from Naruto, the table broke into chaos. Rather than uncivilised people vying for food though, to the less picky observers, they looked like a large family. With Nerra, Serin and Nova all placing foods they thought were best for him on Naruto's plate; Naruto himself trying to get a little of every and any food type; Zen trying to get Nephelie to eat a particular mushroom dish that he said was good for her but she hated; and Rigel and Wolf engaged in what seemed like a polite conversation over a certain piece of sausage: the meal was certainly a lively one. Amidst laughter, arguments, storytelling and nit-picking, the meal was completed. What had seemed like a really large spread had been polished off by the group that now sat satisfied around the table.

Naruto was sure he could not eat anymore till butlers wearing solemn expressions and long black tail coats walked into the room, wheeling before them desert trays.

"Desert!" Nova cheered.

_'I'm sure a little dessert wouldn't be bad'_

* * *

All in all it had been a very satisfying lunch. Was the line along which Naruto was thinking as he soaked in the enormous bath positioned in the enormous bathroom located in the enormous room that he had woken up in earlier that afternoon.

There was a sense of camaraderie amongst them that had made him enjoy his meal even more. The more the merrier.

'_And Jelly is really nice.' _His mind added as he thought of the wiggly orange desert he had had after the meal. _'Living in a place like this must be nice. The room is nice, the food is nice and he has Nova, Zen, Nephelie and Wolf living with him. It really is better when you're doing things with others.' _

Naruto thought back to the days when he had been staying alone in his apartment. It would have been so much better if he had the Hokage or Iruka or Teuchi and Ayame or even one of his friends staying with him. He had really enjoyed the days he had spent living with Reina. During that time Nerra and Serin had been just a little too big to fit in Reina's small house but Reina had always made their meals into picnics which they had had in front of her house so that Serin and Nerra and any willing neighbour could join them. And Loki had been in and out of the house constantly talking with Naruto or taking him to visit this person or that person or just to keep him company…

'_Where is Loki anyway?' _he wondered as he realised he had not seen the chipmunk since he had woken up that afternoon _'He was supposed to follow after me right?'_

A sharp knock on his door startled him out of his thoughts and he turned towards it.

"Can I get you anything young master Naruto?" a female voice inquired from just outside the bathroom door.

"No thank you Cille-san." He answered back. Cille was the maid who had accompanied him to show him back to his room and help him with anything he might need.

'_Young master huh?' _he thought. The title sounded peculiar to him and held an amount of respect he was not used to receiving.

"Do you need any help with washing your back?" she asked him.

"Nah, I'm good."

"Perhaps I should get you some more bath time toys."

At this Naruto looked at all the floating battle ship, trade ships, pirate ships, treasure chests, harbours, islands, trains, people, weapons and various toy animals that were already floating in his very bubbly bath water and decided that he had enough bath time toys.

"I think I have enough of those already Cille-san." Naruto said back. "I'm really fine thank you." He told her.

"Of course young master Naruto. Please feel free to call me if you do require anything." She said respectfully.

"Will do." He answered her.

He held some bubbles in his hand, threw them up and watched as they floated back down into the bath. Then he adjusted himself and slid his body further down into the bath so that only his head was visible. He felt really comfortable as the warm water which was at just the right temperature helped to relax his muscles and the scent of the bubble bath mixture helped to calm his mind.

'_I wonder if Cille will tell me what she put into this water to make it feel so good.'_ He thought _'I feel like a prince. Rich people have it good. I wonder if Sasuke gets to do this every night.'_ Now there was a thought he realised. When was the last time he had wondered about his rival in Konoha? Would the black haired boy be jealous of him when he heard about how much fun and adventures Naruto had had and was still having?

Actually Naruto did not hate the boy he was just jealous of him. Sasuke had everything that Naruto wanted: He had a large family; a brother who came to pick him up from school sometimes; the respect of the populace; teachers who were more than willing to help him; people who wanted to hang around him and be his friends- who acknowledged him; a good grade in both theory and practical school work: everything!

But Naruto didn't have that. He didn't have the prestige, or acknowledgement, or skills that Sasuke had- well not yet anyway. There he went again, he was sulking. Sasuke was like an anti-him. Naruto growled at that thought before realising something that made him chuckle a bit: they were also opposite in looks. Where Naruto had bright features, Sasuke's features were dark.

Somewhere in him he had always thought of beating his anti-him as what he needed to do to overcome a big wall. If he could beat the one person that stood at the top then he could be the one to stand at the top- plain, simple logic. However, if he were to be truthful he would admit that having Sasuke as a rival was fun. Yeah they were from two different worlds but that didn't change the fact that challenging Sasuke was fun. The kid never seemed to think of Naruto as a bother and unless he was in a hurry he had never actually refused a challenge from Naruto. Sure their spars were always short lived with the loser being Naruto every time but Naruto could tell that Sasuke had fun when fighting with him and maybe that was part of why Naruto always looked forward to their daily spars. Maybe, just maybe they could actually become friends when he returned home…

"Huh?"

It took a few minutes for the implication of what he had been thinking to hit him full force and when it did he gave a little panicked motion that had him slipping under the water without any preparation.

"Gah! *cough, cough* what am I thinking? *cough, cough, cough* I'll never be friends with him!" he declared and coughed some more.

"Are you okay young master Naruto?" Cille's worried voice came from outside the door.

"Yeah, I'm fine." He called back. "Just slipped a little. No need to worry though, I'm perfectly okay." He said to ensure that she wouldn't panic and come in.

"Maybe I should-" she began, only to be cut off by the blond:

"Just stay there, I'm fine." He reassured her again.

"Yes, of course." She finally relented and inside the bathroom Naruto gave a small sigh of relief,

'_Maybe I should come out now, the fumes seem to be messing with my head.'_

* * *

Despite what he had thought Naruto remained in the bath for almost an hour after that before he finally came out feeling refreshed and revitalised. All throughout his bath the water had remained at that same constant, soothing temperature and the bubbles never seemed to grow less.

"That felt good." He said with a sigh of contentment.

"I see that you're out young master." A voice said from behind him.

"Gah!" he shouted in panic as he turned around to face the spectacled maid, Cille. He had momentarily forgotten about her.

"You're still here." It was a statement not a question.

"I am to remain here and help you until you are ready to be led to where master Rigel awaits you." She replied calmly.

"Um… okay?" he said a little unsure.

For a few moments it was quiet as none of them said anything then Naruto broke the silence with a:

"Um, I need to get dressed now."

"Yes." Cille answered.

"Can you wait outside the room?"

"I am to give you assistance in putting on you attire." She replied.

"I can dress myself." He said bluntly. "Come on Cille-san~!" he whined out, going to the back of the woman and trying to push her out of the room all to no avail "I can dress myself really, I've been doing it since I was small." He told her.

Her face took an amused expression at his words, "Excuse me younger master, but to all intents and purposes you are still small."

Naruto felt a small tick mark appear on his head at both her words and his inability to budge her even an inch "Then since I was small~er." He whined again.

"Very well then. I shall take my leave. You will find your clothes laid out on the bed. Please call me if you need any help."

With that she finally left the room. Once she was out the door she chuckled into her hands,

"So cute." She said. Naruto really was a cute kid. His frown when she had called him small was something she wished she could have captured on a camera. Also his insistence on his privacy at such a young age was adorable. Kids born into the more upper class families, at this age already had a sort of resignation. They had been pampered and fretted over so long that to them having someone there to keep an eye on them at all times was normal. Naruto had the upbringing of someone who did not have or expect that sort of help or interference. To him, being able to do things on his own gave him a sense of worth and independence that he treasured. He would be a fun child to tease, he had so many interesting reactions that she was sure she would find amusing. Not to mention the fact that master Rigel seemed to have taken a liking to him so he would probably be around often. Yes, she was going to have quite a bit of fun.

* * *

Naruto gave a huff of annoyance when Cille finally left the room. He really did not like being called small. Plus he had grown a little right? (actually right now he was considered tall for a kid his age but no one had specifically pointed that out to him)

Well whatever, he thought as he went over to the bed. He did not recognise the outfit on the bed as being one of his own. It was a sleeveless, light orange shirt and a pair of baggy, black ankle length trousers with two orange stripes going down each side. Naruto put it on, along with the black sandals that were left for him at the feet of the bed. Then ruffling through his bag pack which they had left on the bed for him, he pulled out a black, orange polka dotted bandanna that had been a gift from Reina. The female squirrel had had a thing for bandannas and had bought them as often as she had a chance to- both for herself and for Naruto. In the couple of weeks he had been staying with her he had acquired more bandannas than he had clothes in his closet (Even if the clothes in his closet were not much the number of bandannas he had were still considered a lot). He tied the folded bandanna around his forehead like he had seen the ninja do with their forehead protectors. Its position was more for looks than anything though, given that the bandanna was not sturdy enough to reduce the damage of a blow to the head and did nothing by way of keeping his bangs out of his eyes.

Feeling that he was ready he rushed to the door and flung it open.

"I'm ready Cille-san!" he called out a little louder than he needed to.

"I'm right here young master." Cille said calmly from beside the door and Naruto turned and fixed her with one of his face splitting foxy grins.

"Then what are waiting for?! Let's go!" he said running a little ways in front of her. In his excitement at finally becoming a bookkeeper he had forgotten one small detail:

"Am I to assume that you know the way to the meeting point with master Rigel?" Cille asked innocently and Naruto skidded to a stop.

"What?" he asked.

"Do you know the point where you meet with master Rigel?" she asked again with an innocently curious face.

"Ah," he said in realization "No, I don't."

'_I figured as much.'_ Cille said in her head.

"Then lead the way." Naruto said impatiently,

"Of course," she replied and took the lead. She took care to walk at a normal, controlled pace even as she saw the young boy, from the corner of her eyes, vibrating with energy and a need to move faster.

"Common! Common! Come on!" Naruto said when he could not take it any longer "Can't you move any faster?" he asked.

"I can." She answered him but nothing changed and their pace remained the same.

"You said you could move faster, why aren't you?" Naruto questioned, pointing an accusing finger at her.

"Patience, we'll be there soon."

"We'll be there sooner if you just picked up the pace." He pouted.

She gave him a smile "Rushing will not accomplish anything."

"Yeah right!" he shot back, "I bet you're only trying to annoy me." He said, his tone showed that if that was her purpose then she had succeeded.

"What an absurd idea young master." She told him with a straight face while on the inside she gave a victory sign.

They had been walking for some time with any of Naruto's attempts to speed up the pace being successfully countered or ignored by Cille.

"Here we are." She said finally as she pushed open a large door that led to an even larger room.

"Finally." Naruto said. "I thought we'd never get here."

"Such an exaggeration," she said.

"I see you two are here." Rigel said, getting up from the cross legged position he had taken on the floor while waiting for Naruto's arrival.

"Would have been here sooner if Cille wasn't being so slow…" Naruto muttered darkly under his breath.

"Yes master." Cille said with a small curtsy, giving no indication that she had heard the words of the irritated blond next to her.

But Rigel had heard them and looked pretty amused by them.

"Well then, that will be all Cille," he said "Thank you very much for your help."

"Yes." She said with another curtsy and taking the cue he had given, turned around and left the room.

"She's nice isn't she?" Rigel couldn't resist asking Naruto and all he got in return for his trouble was a dark glower that spoke volumes on the boy's thoughts at his question.

The glower, though, had the opposite effect on Rigel who was even more amused than before and whose smile didn't falter as he turned to face his guardians:

"Alright!" Rigel said as all four of his keys began moving "A contract is a binding together of a key's guardian spirit and the key's keeper. However the initial contract I help you make is also a contract with the library itself. It is a contract that gives you access to the energies of the library and is needed before you can make any other contract. After this first contract you're free to make a contract with any key you want as long as it also wants to make a contract with you and you have the capability to handle it. I suppose Serin and Nerra already explained the whole thing to you." He finished.

Naruto looked at his keys guardians and tilted his head to the side in a curious fashion.

"We felt it would be easier for him to understand everything if he could see it." Serin said with a sheepish smile and Rigel nodded in understanding. In theory it sounded simple but still, it would be hard for a child as young as Naruto who had not been raised with those principles drilled in his head, to understand.

"Understood. Okay you four,"

His four keys nodded and then stood in a diamond formation: Nova was opposite Nephelie, and Zen was opposite to Wolf. As Naruto watched each one of them materialised a card in their hand- Nova's was a red card with a club suit; Zen's had a white spade; Nephelie's was a blue heart; Wolf's was a black diamond: Naruto was familiar with each suit because he had played cards at school before. The colours of card though, save for the red and black, were new to him.

At the same time each of them threw their cards to the ground and each card grew until they formed a cross shape with a free centre- there was nothing occupying the space created when the cards made contact. The space between each card was filled off by some gold coloured substance. The four arcs at the bottom of the card grew until it formed a ring at the bottom of the cards that defined the free centre of the four cards. The four arcs at the top of the cards grew until they met each other in the golden areas and formed a ring at the cards top. Each one of Rigel's keys stood unmoving in front of the card they had thrown, their eyes were closed and Nova's smile was gone.

"Come on." Serin said as he held Naruto's hand and pulled him into the areas defined by the smaller ring.

The effect was almost immediate.

Naruto felt a small tingle run up his body at the same time the circles that made up the outer ring as well as the symbol for each suit turned gold and began to glow. Then he saw them. One by one- they seemed to appear- the black symbols that filled in the outer ring. They never stayed still but were always in continuous motion in the ring.

It was as he was watching them that he noticed that each of Rigel's keys now had similar rings around them also filled with black characters. Out of wonder, he looked to his own feet to see if a gold rimmed ring was present and was not disappointed. Then he looked to Serin, then Nerra and finally to Rigel and noticed that they also had the same rings. He looked back down at his own feet as he studied the characters in the ring that surrounded his feet- characters that defined him- wait.

What?!

Naruto took a closer look at them again and realised that he was not seeing things and that even though he could not understand exactly what the symbols meant he did get their general meaning. These letters told about him. About Naruto Uzumaki. He looked around again until he spotted Nerra and tried to see if he could get the general meaning of the codes at her feet, only to notice that the characters seemed a little blurred. Seeing that he turned back to see if he could actually read what was in his ring. It was as he was trying to do this that he noticed the words that were forming in the intersection created where his circle crossed Nerra's and Serin's. As the words formed the outer rings began to grow smaller, absorbed by the word in that intersection. And as the outer ring was absorbed the cards shrunk until at last they were back to their normal sides. At that moment two things happened: the vacuum characters broke off (the one that had had formed in that intersection), some of it entering his ring, some Nerra's and some Serin's; and there was a bright flash of golden light. After that Naruto felt a tingle in his wrist and looked to see the black characters on each wrist. After that he looked down and noticed that now occupying the space previously covered by the cards was a brown, hard cover book. On the cover of the book was a black ring similar to the ring that had been sucked in by the words from the intersection. And in the centre of that ring was an orange spiral.

"Congratulations on becoming a bookkeeper." Rigel said and Naruto turned to face him. "You might want to fold that though, it's a little inconvenient to carry it around when it's that size." The other boy finished, gesturing to the brown volume in Naruto's hands.

Naruto looked from him to the book then tried to fold it up and was shocked when the book actually folded in two. Then again, he folded it in half till instead of a book the size of four playing cards, it was a book the size of one. That was not normal.

"It unfolds too." Rigel said with some humour when he saw Naruto's reaction to the folding book.

As Naruto marvelled at the book, folding and unfolding it as many times as possible Rigel's eyes strayed to the ring around Naruto's feet and his face became serious. The ring was about 60cm away from Naruto in each direction and the gold lines of the ring, that signified bookkeepers and keys, were very well defined. Not to mention that the colour in the ring was a very light blue rather than a darker blue like it should have been.

'_The strength and determination of his spirit is pretty strong and well defined even at this age.' _He thought _'That explains why Crell thought he would be able to become a bookkeeper. He has a lot of potential."_ His eyes turned up to look at Naruto who was listening to Zen explain something to him and strayed to Serin who was standing there laughing at Naruto's incredulous expression then to Nerra who was watching them with a straight face and an amused glint in her eyes. At the same time Rigel turned to face her, her eyes met his and for a few seconds she caught his gaze till Rigel finally turned his eyes away. Nerra stood there watching him for a second before returning her attention to what was happening with Naruto. _'It also explains why he's able to contract two high level guardians at the same time and at his age.' _He thought.

Almost immediately he had come to that conclusion his eyes turned to the red line that was outside the outer circle of Naruto's ring. Instead of having two circles that made up a ring he had three circles, two gold ones and one red one. The fact that the red one did not form a full ring on its own but rather seemed attached to Naruto's ring showed that whatever owned that ring was somehow joined to Naruto but at the same time was a completely different entity. _'It's not some kind of split identity,'_ Rigel surmised_ 'he has something bound to him'_ he realised. He had seen it before, people who had demons or even guardian spirits sealed into them. Whatever was bound to Naruto had a strong but malicious spirit that was being strongly suppressed and kept separate from Naruto's.

"Hey Rigel!" Naruto called to the key keeper. As he turned, he saw a ring materialise in Rigel's hand, spinning furiously. From the ring a small book that was greatly similar to Naruto's materialised and then the ring disappeared. "What're you doing?" Naruto asked as he walked up to the shorter boy.

Rigel didn't answer him as he pulled out a pen and scribbled something into the book and watched it with great interest. He looked up at Naruto with cloudy eyes as he contemplated something.

"What's wrong?" Naruto asked a little unnerved by Rigel's stare. "Do I have something on my face?" he asked as he rubbed his face to get whatever it was off.

"No, not on your face." Rigel answered.

"Then whe-"

"It's sealed into you." Rigel told him.

"Wha-?"

"You have something sealed into you." Rigel clarified.

"I what?" Naruto asked in shock.

"That extra red line around your ring shows that." Rigel explained to him.

Naruto looked down at his feet and noticed that he did indeed have one line more than the others in the room.

"What is sealed into me?" Naruto asked,

"A demon." Rigel said simply.

"A what?" Naruto asked, feeling a little dread creep up on him.

Rigel saw the boy's face and shook his head. "It's nothing to be worried about, he said with his smile back in place on his face. "Why don't you take a seat so that I can explain this to you?"

Naruto sat down on the floor so that his legs were folded under him.

"You see this red line?" Rigel asked and Naruto nodded. "It doesn't form a separate ring on its own but it doesn't mar the colour of you circles you see," Naruto nodded "That shows that the entity is not fully joined to you but is not completely separate either therefor the explanation is that it is sealed in you." Naruto nodded again "This particular character that is bordering on your ring and the ring it forms with yours is what is holding you guys together. Then this line right here" he said as he gesture to another black line with faint characters circling it "Is like a door that allows its energy to merge with yours. The only time this door can be opened is if: you open it; if it weakens considerably; or if you give the key to whatever is on the other side. In other words you're the one in control here unless you say otherwise."

"So unless I want it to it can't do anything to me?" Naruto asked.

"No, it can't." Rigel confirmed.

"And I'm not a sealed monster or something?" he asked again.

"No you're not. It's just like an extra power source, a backup battery- if you ever run out of energy it can give you more but only at a heavy price that you might regret paying later on."

"I see." Naruto nodded. And he really did. It was with a kind of resigned acceptance that he accepted the fact. Of course he had seen so many weird things lately that finding out he had a demon sealed into him was just another extra "So what kind of a demon is it?" he asked.

"Kyuubi, the nine tailed demon fox."

Well now, that changed things a bit.

"I have the Kyuubi sealed into me?" he asked in a sort of shock.

"Yup."

"Wasn't it killed by the fourth hokage?"

"Nope."

"But they said-"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"Because humans from your realm don't know how to deal with demons, even in another realm where demons are a common sight the Kyuubi would have been a challenge."

"So…"

"Hm, it was easiest to just seal it off if not it might have caused a mass devastation that would have ended up killing a lot of people."

"So I'm kind of a hero." Naruto asked in awe.

"Yep."

Then Naruto frowned.

"So that's why the people in my village hate me? Because the demon is sealed in me?" he asked.

"Can't say for sure." Rigel said with a shrug. "I'd have to actually see their behaviour before I can determine for sure if they do hate you. But my guess is that they hate what's in you and fear you who hold their greatest nightmare. They probably do something like avoid you and stuff."

"Yeah, they do." Naruto said with a down trodden look. "Well that explains a lot." He sighed. "It's still too bad though, that the old man never told me anything." He looked up at Rigel "Is that why my parents left? Maybe that's why the old man always says he doesn't know who my parents are because they abandoned me when they found out the demon was sealed in me."

Rigel shrugged again, "You'd have to actually ask that old man right?"

"Or I could just search the Infinity Library." Naruto said.

"Yeah- that may take some time though." Rigel said with a smile "You okay?" he asked "I mean, finding out all that can be a little…"

"Recently I've seen a lot of weird things, finding out about the Kyuubi was just another one of them- no biggie." He shrugged. "By the way, where's Loki?" Naruto piped up suddenly before Rigel could say any more. Dwelling on painful thoughts of abandonment and the feeling that came with them was not his style. He had just accomplished what he set out to accomplish. He had actually become a bookkeeper and he had friends here that were happy for him. Why was he going to let one bad thought make him feel bad? If they didn't want him then he didn't want the either. He was just fine… just fine… And he really hoped that his parents had not actually abandoned him because of the fox- that'd suck.

"He said something about going to post a letter a short time before we woke you up. He should be back soon." Serin answered.

"A letter huh? Mm'kay."

'_So what do I do now?'_ he asked himself. _'I've become a bookkeeper so next is to find that Stupid wolf and make him acknowledge that he was wrong about me. But where do I find him?'_

"Hey Rigel!" Naruto called to the boy who had been discussing something with Zen. Rigel turned to face him and he continued "Do you know where I can find a bunch of white wolves?"

"White wolves?"

"Yeah, they're weird white wolves, they can talk and one of them is called Naevar."

"You're looking for Naevar?"

"Yeah."

"Hm, well I do know his route and the places you can normally find him but sometimes he leaves to attend to business in different parts of the library."

"That's good enough for me. If he's not in one place then I'll just keep looking until I find him and then I'll make him eat his words!" the eight year old said enthusiastically and Rigel smiled at his optimism before asking a question that had been on his mind for some time:

"Why did you become a bookkeeper?"

"Huh?" Naruto asked in a puzzled manner

"I was wondering why you chose to become a bookkeeper. You're young and from the outside and it's very obvious that you had absolutely no idea what a bookkeeper was- so what was your motivation?"

"I wanted to prove that stupid wolf wrong." Naruto replied simply.

"Stupid wolf? Wrong?"

"Naevar." Naruto clarified

"What exactly-"

"He said I was pathetic and couldn't become a bookkeeper so I decided to become one and show him that he was wrong."

"That's it?" Rigel asked incredulously. _'He risked his life just to prove someone wrong about him? Even for a kid, that's a ridiculous amount of pride.' _He chuckled out loud _'But it shows his naivety and is exactly what I'd expect from him. Still… what a way to direct so much energy- he's got some serious growing up to do.'_

"Yup, Once Loki comes back I'm going to go look for that stupid wolf and have him say that he was wrong."

"No can do lad."

"Loki! You're back." Naruto cheered as the elderly chip monk was led into the room by Cille.

"That I am little one. The letter room in here is pretty impressive." He complimented Rigel.

"Yup, the one in this castle has always been very quick and accurate." Rigel said with a smile.

Loki gave a small nod to acknowledge his words.

"With that being said I've sent off a letter to the Oheň tribe. The Oheň have never been one to waste time so I expect to receive a reply from them in a few days at the most- not nearly enough time for you to go running all about the library looking for some wolf."

"Then we can just go after you get their letter right?" Naruto asked, not really seeing anything wrong with delaying his search for Naevar for a few days.

"Can't do that either lad." Loki replied with a shake of his head.

At this point Rigel became a little curious "If you don't mind my asking ("That I don't,") then what exactly was in that letter you sent to the Oheň?"

"That? Isn't it obvious?" he asked and everyone in the room shook their heads "Well, you see, Elara was a mite worried about the young one over there," and here he pointed his thumb in Naruto's direction "So she sent a request that the Oheň take him in for a bit and toughen him up a little."

"How long is 'a bit' exactly?" Rigel asked

"A year of course, anything less than a year ain't gonna be worth it." Loki answered.

"I see." Rigel said.

"What's going on?" Naruto questioned, "Who are the Oheň?" he asked.

"Well Naruto." Rigel said turning to face the younger boy "Seems like you're going to have to delay your search for Naevar for a little. I doubt the Oheň are going to let you do as you please while you're with them."

"Wait a minute, who are the Ohen?" Naruto asked again, turning his head around to look at the people around him.

"Well, it's okay," Rigel continued without answering his question " I bet you'll be too busy to actually remember that you want to look for Naevar."

"Wait!" Naruto finally snapped and shouted "Who exactly are the Oheň?" he asked again.

Rigel turned and looked at him innocently before his face broke into a smile "They're just a small librarian tribe that livesomewhere in the library."

"So I'm going to live with them for a year?"

"That you will." Loki answered him.

"But-" Naruto began to complain. One year was a little long and he had wanted to see his friends and tell them of his adventure.

"Don't worry about." Rigel said with a reassuring smile "I sure you'll have lots of fun."

"Well if you say so." Naruto began reluctantly,

"I'm sure it'll be alright" Rigel said again

_'If it's you you'll do just fine and you'll grow up a little while you're at it.'_

"Now, why don't we go get a quick pre meal snack." He said out loud as he led them out of the room. "By the way what will you like for dinner Naruto?" he asked, turning back to face the boy.

"Ramen." Naruto answered decisively.

"Then ramen it is." Rigel said.

"Alright!" Naruto cheered as he ran ahead of the others into the hall.

"You really think he'll be fine with the Oheň?" Zen quietly asked as he moved so that he was right next to Rigel.

"Just look at him," Rigel gestured to Naruto who was doing a very energetic happy dance at the thought of getting ramen again after so long:

"Mmhm, mmhm, mmhm mmhm mmhm mmhm!" Naruto hummed, ending with a spin that left him dizzy. But the blond ball of energy soon recovered and sang out, "Cause baby tonight, the chefs got me falling in love again, yeah baby tonight~, I'm gonna have the ramen I love again~. So I'll dance, dance like it's the last last night of my life life, Im'ma get it right."

"He's got the determination to get what he wants and I know the Oheň are going to easily light his fighting spirit. He'll do just fine." Rigel said

Zen again looked at where Naruto was still energetically dancing and singing different songs at the top of his voice (Feels like heaven~, she's a spark- _yeah yeah~;_ feels like heaven~, so light me up.) That was the kid who had been willing to face a certainly scary unknown just to prove himself. And at such a young age...

_'Yeah,' _Zen admitted to himself_ 'Kid's gonna do alright.'_

* * *

_Seven days in the sun~ Yeah: Song by feeder (their songs are really nice)- second song Naruto sings :)  
_

I hope you liked the chapter. Till next time then :)_  
_


	6. A boy and his cat

**DISCLAIMER:**** I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO NARUTO. BE IT THE RIGHTS TO THE ANIME, MANGA OR MERCHANDISE. THIS IS A FANFICTION.**

**AN: ****PLEASE READ THE AUTHOR'S NOTE AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER. THANK YOU.**

* * *

"Hehe. That little brat will never see this coming." a small figure crouched in a small alley snickered. The figure had black hair and with him, all three crouched in a circle, were two other children: one with brown hair and the other with black hair as well.

"Sasuke Uchiha is in for a surprise" the second black haired boy said with a nasty smirk. "c'mon let's go" he said as the three of them stood up, one of them holding a small brown box.

* * *

Sasuke Uchiha returned from his day at school feeling tired and irritated. Tired was normal but the reason for his irritation was the outbreak of pranks that had been played on him recently. Unlike the pranks that the missing blond child from his class had used to play, these pranks were not funny at all- they were a little old fashioned and had a malicious quality behind them. Sasuke was convinced that they had been played by idiots because even though they had a mean streak, they tended to be lame and irritated him more than anything else. He wished that the cowards would just come out and challenge him directly so that this whole farce would be over with but…

He stopped as he spotted a brown box standing in front of his door and sighed. Those idiots had struck again. The lack of any identifiable or traceable address on the box was proof of that. He was surprised that they had the nerve to come here seeing as how most of the children believed that this place was hunted-

_I should just toss it_, he thought as his annoyance mounted higher.

He picked up the box intending to just throw it in with his trash and take it to a bigger dumpster when he had the chance to do so.

He opened his door and was about to enter when the box in his arms gave a violent lurch. Sasuke was surprised by the sudden movement and threw down the box. The box rattled again and slowly, very curious about what exactly was in the box he reached out and picked it up. Then cautiously he gave the box a little shake. There was a heavy thudding sound in the box followed by an enraged "REOWWL!" that told him exactly what was in that box.

"They sent me a cat in a box without any air holes?!" he said, enraged.

It was then that a pair of sharp claws tore through the side of the box.

"Calm down. I'll get the box open." Sasuke tried to soothe it as he fumbled with the box lid. A few seconds later the box was open and a black blur raced at him.

Sasuke was taken by surprise and it took all his might to catch the cat and hold the clearly enraged creature away from his face which it seemed intent on tearing to shreds.

"Calm down, calm down!" Sasuke said, panicked- the cat was pretty heavy and if it did not calm down soon his eyes might be in danger.

Sharp green eyes glared at him from under matted and shredded black fur and now that Sasuke could see it properly this cat had patches of hair missing at irregular spots, it also had scratches and some spots of caked blood on its skin. This cat didn't resemble the other alley cats he had seen before- those had obviously lost their skin and obtained bad injuries from fights with other animals but this… this had obviously not been done by alley fights.

Sasuke became enraged at the thought that some idiots had purposely hurt this cat to get to him- he was a cat person.

"Idiots!" he said at the thought of what they had done "First they do this, then they put you in a box without any air holes. When I get my hand on those imbeciles-" he left his sentence unfinished.

The cat immediately stopped trying to scratch him, a little taken aback by his outburst. Inquisitive eyes took in his features as it tried judge him.

"Ah!" Sasuke said brightly when he saw the cat had stopped trying to attack him. "You stopped!"

_This human is different from the others_: It thought looking at him.

"Would you like some sardines?" Sasuke asked smiling down at the cat.

The cat mewed quietly and the small boy took that as a yes.

'I've also got milk, if you would like some. Hmm a bath wouldn't be bad either… and maybe a trip to the vet-'

The cat gave a very loud hiss that allowed Sasuke to immediately discern the cat's dislike for the vet.

'Okay then, no trip to the vet." After saying this he gently picked up the cat. At first it stiffened in his hand but slowly as he stroked its fur it calmed down "How about a name?"

The cat looked up at him curiously.

"You're a female so how about…" Sasuke trailed off midway looking down. He placed the cat on the small coffee table in the middle of his sitting room at them looked up at her "How about Saba?" The cat shook its head vigorously "No?" Sasuke asked disappointed.

_What do you take me for?_ The cat said in her mind, not that he could hear her but that would not stop her giving her critique.

"Nefertiti?" he asked. She looked to be considering it before she slowly shook her head.

"No? Then do you like 'Leda'?" Another negative answer,

"Cleopatra?"

_Where exactly do you get these names?_ She asked with her cute little nose wrinkled. _These are not names from your culture._

As if reading her mind the next few names Sasuke asked were: Tomoe, Masako, and Hangaku- all three names received a negative.

"Then how about Sheba?" he asked finally.

_Seriously, where exactly does he come up with these names?_ She wondered.

"They're all the names of famous or great women of myth." Sasuke informed her when she gave a soft mew that indicated she was satisfied.

_Myth huh?_ She said with a knowing smirk which went unnoticed by the small boy.

"Even though you look like this right now you still seem like a smart, noble female- idiots without brains that don't know how to treat animals" he mumbled the last part still feeling very annoyed with whoever had hurt the cat "so I wanted a befitting name for you."

_Smart boy,_ she gave a satisfied purr at his deduction.

"You can stay here till you recover if you want." He continued looking straight at her "There's no one else here and you might…" his voice finally trailed off and a shadow passed over his eyes.

_Something must have happened here._ She decided. _Well he seems rather attentive and I get free food. This place also seems a fitting residence for the great me. It's quiet and there are no inquisitive and impertinent people here- well I hope not. Then the great me has decided-_

She walked up to Sasuke's hand and rubbed herself against it. Sasuke looked up from his inner brooding. Sheba stared at him with keen, unblinking eyes. He raised up his hand slowly wondering if she wanted to be petted and when she rubbed her hand against his opened palm he obliged her.

_There! The great me has decided to honour you with my presence and companionship- for the time being- so there's no need to spend time being lonely when you could be marvelling over my beauty and grace._

"Then let's get you cleaned up shall we?" Sasuke asked; his mood had been slightly "I'll go prepare the bath water."

Once the water was ready Sasuke carried a quiet Sheba to the bathroom. Before he dropped her into the tub she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

_Those imbeciles!_ She was shocked and furious at her reflection.

"You don't like the water temperature?" Sasuke asked her when he heard the low growl she had emitted in her rage.

Sheba immediately let out a quiet purr to assure him that she was fine and Sasuke promptly continued to wash her.

_Those morons!_ She continued her internal rant. _Look what they did to my beautiful fur. Well I can't let them get away with this can I? I'll find the idiots that did this to me and when I do- oh when I do- I promise to make them pay!_

* * *

_**AN:**_Hello everyone- long time no see. **HAPPY NEW YEAR**.

I will be rewriting this story. I really appreciate you support so far and I'm really sorry for leaving the story this long but I have a lot on my plate right now and I take a long time to type so the latest chapter won't be out for some time. The reason I'm rewriting is not because I'm changing the plot or anything it's just because some of my explanations were too messed up or illogical and would create a difficult mess to clean up in future chapters (yes I have thought about the future chapters though I have not yet typed them and I know that some of the critical foundations that I have laid out for this story actually interferes with what I have planned- not all of it but some of it, a very small part of it in fact, but important enough to warrant concern) so I'm going back to rework or clarify them- things won't really change. The first rewritten chapter is already over and done with but I'm not going to post it up yet until I have written up to a point in the future where I'm happy with- maybe till the end of the first part of the story. This chapter actually features Sasuke and his new _pet_ and I had always planned to put it in the story both before it was rewritten and after. This is only one-third of the Sasuke chapters though and it is **not** a filler chapter. Once again I thank you for your support and patience._  
_

**S**_piral _**R**_eflection_


End file.
